With the Australian government hiring a consultant for advice on dealing with consultants, Momus, the Greek god of satire, retreats helplessly from the stage. Which is too bad since we could use a satirical hand, or mouth, when told Canada’s minister of immigration says we must bring in an endless stream of immigrants to build houses for the endless stream of immigrants we’re bringing in to build … um … hang on a second.
“Homelessness & Affordability Crisis”
Should Ottawa build homes again? ‘Conversations’ happening, minister says
As pressure mounts on the federal government to take a more active role in filling the housing supply gap, the minister in charge of the portfolio is exploring new — and potentially old — approaches to getting homes built.
The need to build more homes to accommodate Canada’s growing population has put the federal Liberal government on the defensive in recent weeks, as opposition leader Pierre Poilievre criticizes Justin Trudeau’s government on concerns over unaffordable housing.
It’s never wise to trust government doubly so when it’s the Trudeau government.
Housing crisis: Trudeau doubles down on destroying dreams of a generation too poor to rent or own homes vows no change to cruel mass immigration scam
The alarm bells are becoming bull horns: Canada’s housing supply isn’t keeping up with the rapid rate of population growth.
Academics, commercial banks and policy thinkers have all been warning the federal government that the pace of population growth, facilitated by immigration, is making the housing crisis worse.
“The primary cause for (the) housing affordability challenge in Canada is our inability to build more housing that is in line with the increase in population,” said Murtaza Haider, a professor of data science and real estate management at Toronto Metropolitan University.
Average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Vancouver tops $3,000 a month
Joe Pobia has been living in a bachelor suite in a Commercial Drive apartment for 10 years.
His rent was $770 a month when he moved in and, after moderate increases each year, he’s now paying $1,070. But after an eviction notice in April, which stated his suite was needed to house another resident property manager, the construction worker is now looking for a home in the most expensive place to rent in Canada.
Lay the blame where it belongs, Trudeau and his crony capitalist friends.
Squamish van dwellers running out of places to park as local Walmart limits long-term stays
People living in their vehicles in Squamish, B.C., are running out of places to park their cars overnight after the local Walmart announced it would no longer allow long-term parking.
The notice comes two years after the district council in Squamish, located about 64 kilometres north of Vancouver, passed a bylaw prohibiting people who live in their vehicles from spending the night parked on municipal streets.
The latest restriction means there are fewer and fewer places to sleep for people who can’t live in a home for any number of reasons.
The Sad Truth About Drug Legalization
Oregon’s drug legalization “hasn’t gone as planned,” according to The Atlantic, and has been “an unmitigated disaster,” according to Oregon Clackamas County Commissioner Ben West — and does this former legalization proponent have a few things to say about that.
Should Canadians offer up spare rooms to help with housing crunch?
With many Canadians struggling to find a place to live with rising home prices and interest rates, governments at both provincial and municipal levels are trying new methods — but those in the industry say building more homes is the key factor to actually solving Canada’s housing crisis.
The calls to keep the focus on building more comes after Nova Scotia Municipal Housing Minister John Lohr last week announced the government was extending its contract with the national online home-sharing platform Happipad, and called on residents who may have a spare bedroom to consider opening up their home to share.
Solutions in Plain Sight
California could make a major dent in its homelessness problem merely by reversing some of its most destructive policies.
Half of America’s so-called unsheltered homeless live in California. It’s not hard to understand why. Along with having the most hospitable weather on earth, California is a welcoming place for drug addicts, petty thieves, and anyone else attracted to beachside living, free government food, and no requirement to work.
Federal policy has played a part in California’s homelessness problem. The counterproductive “Housing First” rule, emanating from the Department of Housing and Urban Development during the Obama era, favors programs that prioritize “supportive housing” over activities like drug counseling or job training.
22 per cent of Canadian homebuilders cancel projects amid high rates despite severe housing shortage
At a time when Canada desperately needs to build more housing — and Premier Doug Ford is opening up part of the Greenbelt to be developed — the construction industry “remains downbeat” amid high interest rates, with 22 per cent of Canadian homebuilders cancelling projects entirely in the second quarter of 2023.
The Canadian Home Builders’ Association (CHBA) released its second-quarter report last week, which saw the construction of both single- and multi-family units remain low but increase slightly in the second quarter — an improvement from the lows recorded in the fourth quarter of 2022.
Crank immigration to 11 having made no provision for housing and infrastructure to handle the tidal wave.
That was so thoughtful of our political class. Their cronies are going to make out like bandits.
Canadians are being crushed by a housing crisis. Are short-term rentals to blame?
For Tianning Ning and her family, Airbnb was supposed to be a way to live in Toronto after facing the brutal reality of the city’s rental market.
The family — originally from Switzerland — was looking for a place to live for 10 months to accommodate Ning’s husband’s sabbatical at York University.
The problem? They could not break into the market due to a lack of Canadian credit history.
Short term rentals are part of the problem in certain cities but with poor data it is impossible to know to what extent.
Mass immigration is the key contributor to Canada’s housing crisis.
Blamed for affordability crisis, Liberals promise to do more of nothing of any use
Blamed for affordability crisis, Liberals look to pivot on housing
OTTAWA – Chris Burke and his fiancée have been less than a year away from buying their first home for the past three years.
Saving for a down payment was the first challenge. Now, rising interest rates have kicked home ownership down the road again, stalling the couple’s plans to get married and have children.
“Any gains we make towards purchasing a house, we’re watching the goalposts move further and further away,” the 31-year-old Ottawa resident said.
Canada Tests the Limits of Its Liberal Immigration Strategy
The intake of newcomers is rising rapidly and straining housing, healthcare and transportation
Canada is known for its embrace of immigrants and hasn’t experienced the same backlash that has been seen recently in countries such as the U.S. and the Netherlands. But new polling released last month from Ottawa-based Abacus Data reflects skepticism, with 61% of citizens saying the government’s plans are too ambitious because of the negative impact on housing and healthcare. The Canadian Medical Association said the country’s population-to-physician ratio ranks 29th out of 36 developed-world economies, while data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development show Canada’s hospital-bed capacity is one of the lowest on a per-capita basis among rich-world economies.
Canada is known for its embrace of immigrants?
Submission to mass immigration is more like it. Romanticized views of immigration in Canada are the domain of politicians selling snake oil nowadays.
No one signed on for an inundation of incompatible cultures or to have their own government dismiss their heritage and nation as so much racist garbage.
Multiculturalism was weaponized and the smear of racism was used as a bludgeon to smash dissent and ensure Canadians clapped like trained seals in approval whenever the topic of immigration was raised.
Ethnic disaporas possessed of little in common with Canadian values are catered to by our political class who tolerate the intolerable for votes.
Who asked that hiring decisions be made on the basis of government ordained victim status?
Who asked that being white be considered a virtual hate crime and Canada be turned into a low trust society?
Who asked for “racialized sentencing guidelines” for criminals as if the average Joe who just wants to be left alone is somehow responsible for the alleged historic oppression of predators?
No one asked for a balkanized society where foreign ethnic conflicts spill out into our streets.
Who asked for an immigration policy that does not benefit citizens?
No one asked because it was imposed upon us and its true purpose is to benefit the corporate and political classes at our expense.
No one asked because divide and conquer works best when its victims are forbidden to talk about it until it’s too late.
This so called “embrace of immigration” is better described as a choke hold.
Justin Trudeau is under fire for Ottawa’s lacklustre response to the housing crisis. Here is what’s going so wrong
Sure, it’s advertised at more than $82 billion in loans and cash. But the federal government’s national housing plan is little help to Pastor Alexander Wilson.
He and his dwindling congregation at St. Stephen’s Presbyterian Church in Scarborough want to raze their long-standing site of worship and build an apartment complex in its place. It wasn’t an easy decision, but Wilson said some in his flock have turned their minds to what they might leave behind “once they’re finished here on Earth.” Their latest plan is for 111 units, with about a third of them offering rents below market rates. They also hope future residents might join them in a new church space on the main floor.
Toronto’s housing market is so expensive, families earning $100,000 are now eligible for Habitat for Humanity help
Habitat for Humanity’s threshold for providing its famous interest-free loans to struggling homeowners is just the latest example of how dire things are for prospective buyers in Canada’s most expensive cities.
For decades, the national non-profit has helped homeowners afford a place of their own through mortgages that require no down payment and aren’t tethered to Canada’s historically high interest rates. However, Habitat for Humanity does require prospective homebuyers to handle its interest-free mortgages on 30 per cent or less of their income. In Toronto, that means some families earning $100,000 are now on their watchlist.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Weimar!
Toronto is facing a crushing housing shortage. Here’s how a new city committee plans to tackle it
The committee, with Coun. Gord Perks as chair and former chair and city planner Coun. Brad Bradford as vice-chair, is tasked with delivering on Chow’s campaign promise of building 25,000 rent-controlled homes over the next eight years.
And while it may be a lofty goal to get shovels in the ground within the next three year’s of Chow’s term, Perks says the city has no choice but to deliver if it wants to get ahead of the housing shortage.
Just what Toronto needs – great swaths of run down crime ridden social housing.