Our Solutions

Canadian rental housing providers for affordable housing understand that housing is about people. Today, Canadians face twin housing crises: supply and affordability. Canada has the fewest homes per capita in the G7. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has called for 5.8 million homes to be built by 2030 in order to restore housing affordability in Canada.

Solving the housing crisis will require an all hands on deck approach.

We’re up for the challenge.

As some of the largest owners and managers of affordable market rentals in Canada, we have insight into what is needed to deliver the housing Canada needs, at prices Canadians can afford.

We have shared our ideas in a submission to the House of Commons Pre-Budget Consultations in Advance of the 2023 Federal Budget.

What follows are recommendations that would help preserve Canada’s current stock of affordable housing and deliver the homes Canadians need.

Fund more affordable housing

The most affordable housing is the housing that is already built. More existing housing must be made affordable.

  • Creating supportive financing and a funding program for cooperatives and non-profits to acquire existing market-based affordable housing from REITs and others at market prices, and preserve affordability through community land trusts. We agree with the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association (CHRA) that this solution should be added to the National Housing Strategy.

  • Adjusting the formula of CMHC’s Mortgage Loan Insurance (MLI) Select program for existing buildings by lowering the affordability threshold, reducing rates and fees, and/or decreasing debt service coverage requirements for these loans. This would make investing in affordable housing a better return on investment than using traditional financing and charging market rents. It would increase the supply of affordable homes just as the Multi-Unit Residential Building program did from 1979 to 1984 when we last faced such a crisis in housing supply.

More rental support for Canadians

In a country as rich as Canada, everyone should be able to afford a place to call home.

  • We are firmly supportive of the means-tested Canada Housing Benefit (CHB) and the recent one-time top-up, benefiting 1.8 million low-income families who rent their homes.

    We are supportive of expanding the CHB to help more families make ends meet, and of developing emergency supports to help people avoid losing their homes in times of crisis.

A national standard to align land-use policies to promote affordable home construction

Canada’s population is growing, but housing isn’t keeping up. We need to dramatically increase housing supply. The federal government should use the Health and Social transfers, infrastructure and other funding streams to nudge provinces, territories (PTs) and municipalities to align land-use policies to create a national standard.

  • Many municipalities, as empowered by their PTs, use development charges (DCs) and other upfront fees to fund infrastructure growth. These charges on new residential construction hurt affordability by adding tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of each new home.

    PTs and municipalities have greater buying power and access to lower borrowing costs than individual builders. Whether through general operations or bonds, governments at all levels can support the development of more affordable homes by reducing the upfront costs of building.

  • Across the country, planning and building departments are understaffed and overburdened with complicated and often conflicting regulations. It is not uncommon for an ordinary residential project to take years or even a decade to be approved.

    PTs must create clear overarching land use regulations and require municipalities to develop pro-housing policies and zoning that make it easy to build sustainable, mixed-use communities with affordable homes. In the meantime, as departments ramp up, priority must be given to projects that include purpose-built rental housing that meets affordability criteria.

  • Manufactured homes are built faster, cheaper and more energy-efficiently off-site in factories, than conventional homes. Manufactured home communities (MHCs) offer some of the most affordable market housing in Canada.

    Unfortunately, MHCs have a negative perception, a sentiment reinforced by restrictive legislation, including provincial regulations and municipal zoning by-laws that block manufactured homes from being built in existing residential areas, prevent new or expanded communities entirely, or have outdated performance standards. In addition, provincial regulations generally cap land leases at 21 years, placing buyers at a disadvantage when seeking mortgages.

    Lifting these regulations would scale up the delivery of manufactured homes dramatically.

Don’t tax what you want more of

Just as putting a price on carbon reduces greenhouse gas emissions, taxes on housing, and affordable housing in particular, discourages construction. All governments must align their taxation policies to promote new construction.

  • The federal government should reconsider its decision and remove the HST from new capital investments in affordable rental housing, and go even further by exempting the HST on all rental housing, as it does for other essentials like unprocessed food and children’s clothing.

  • Property taxes are the main funding mechanism for municipalities, but they are an ongoing additional cost and barrier to affordability in rental housing. Moreover, municipalities often charge as much as 250% of the property tax rate for purpose-built rentals compared to owner-occupied housing. This represents about 11 cents out of every dollar of rent paid. Long-term reductions in municipal property taxes, in exchange for long-term commitments to maintain affordable rents, would make hundreds of thousands of apartments more affordable for Canadians.

  • Real estate investment trusts (REITs) were introduced in Canada to promote investment in Canadian real estate. They have been successful in promoting investment while resulting in overall tax revenue being approximately the same as what would be received through a corporate structure.

    A 2022 study by EY found that changing the tax treatment of REITs would disincentivize needed investment in residential supply, put upward pressure on rents, and have a marginal — and possibly negative — impact on government revenues.