We’ve been seeing more books on Canadian housing lately, and more specifically about the housing “crisis” (or lack thereof). Last year saw the release of Ricardo Tranjan’s The Tenant Class and now I’ve been able to read Our Crumbling Foundation: How We Solve Canada’s Housing Crisis by Gregor Craigie. This book was released in March of 2024 by Random House Canada.
The first thing one might expect is for Craigie to dive right into solutions (as promised in the title), but he doesn’t do that exactly. He leans into a vignette-each-chapter style; highlighting the plight of a tenant, landlord, and sometimes even a city. Initially this is a bit disorienting, but as you read on, it becomes apparent what Craigie is trying to show. By the book’s midpoint, I thought the approach was very effective.
SOLO’s own Varun Sriskanda is quoted on page 58 discussing Elsie’s case and suggesting Ontario’s Landlord and Tenant Board’s top priority should be to remove its stifling backlog. It’s telling that there’s enough time for a book to be written, edited and published discussing a crushing backlog and it’s still not resolved. In some cases, it may even be worse. So many things follow on from fixing these massive delays that (as I’ll discuss later), some of Craigie’s solutions seemed less useful.
It’s often very instructive to learn what other cities are doing to combat the need for additional housing. In chapter 4, Craigie looks at Paris, France, a far bigger and much more entrenched metropolis. One would think the opportunities for increasing housing supply are limited in a city this old.
Chapter 8 talks about how Finland used a novel approach labelled “housing first.” The idea is to provide people the housing before they fix issues so folks can have the foundation for tackling their problems. This arrangement seems to be working and it shows in the numbers, they claim “that moving on chronically homeless person into stable housing saves the government around €15,000 a year in social costs.” We’re seeing some of this here in Ontario with Peterborough’s transitional housing program. Like Finland, drug use is allowed (to a certain degree), and staff and security is on site to monitor and enforce rules. Those in this complex aren’t required to have solved their personal struggles to gain housing. Mayor Jeff Leal says, “It’s worth every dollar.” CBC reported on the program.
But, as I have come to understand, not all municipalities that say the phrase “housing first” are doing much more than lip-service to the idea. I spoke by teleconference to Hamilton city councillor Cameron Kroetsch and not only did he bring up Finland’s approach to herald the work Hamilton is doing, but he dropped the slogan several times as a badge of honour. For anyone who’s been to Hamilton since COVID, the epic scale of homelessness and encampments there suggests anything but “housing first” is taking place. For us to make a change, we have to start admitting what’s not working and Hamilton is a perfect place to begin.
Some of Craigie’s ideas include “establishing rent control between tenancies,” and creating rental registries. In practice, these artificial market restrictions too-often backfire and lead to higher rents. But, more importantly, with a sloth-like LTB, enacting these policies continue to squeeze and small rental operators, further pushing them out of the market. Most housing investors in Canada know that Ontario is a risky place to operate a rental. This should change.
Also included in the appendix were some statistics:
Projected shortage, in millions, of homes across Canada by 2030: 35
Number of people who moved to Canada in 2022: 1,050,110
Percentage of Canada’s 2022 population growth attributed to immigration: 96
Percentage of national vacancy rate across Canada in 2022: 1.9
In conclusion, Craigie’s book does a great job of highlighting many of our housing issues across Canada, and more importantly, revealing possible future solutions to Ontario’s housing debacle. Looking at various strategies from all over the world is a novel way to show some things we ought to be doing here. Our Crumbling Foundation: How We Solve Canada’s Housing Crisis is available now at book stores.
SOLO is a nonprofit advocating for small rental operators and fairness in the system. We’re always looking for new books to take a look at. If you have a suggestion, contact us.
