The folly of housing affordability

[bob vernon]

Any party that is foolish enough to make housing affordability an election campaign issue is out of touch. The vast majority of the Boomer generation and some of their children own houses that have increased by a lot in the past few years. The leftist Liberals and NDP and Green are making all kinds of promises to make housing more affordable. That would reduce the value of the houses owned by most people and that's their retirement money because a lot of the middle class no longer have pensions from work.
A conservative government should allow the market system to keep the housing market going just as it is with inflating prices. Sure, we have millenials living in illegal basement suites all over the place and they will likely stay there for a long time, but they don't vote in large numbers.
Let the free-enterprise system do the job that God intended: survival of the fittest.

[hobbyguy]

You miss the balance. Affordable housing for all is a laudable goal, almost impossible to achieve, but you can get a LOT closer than we are in Canada.

One need only look to countries like Austria where a more appropriate mix of subsidized housing and free market systems operate side by side. Privately owned housing, especially single family housing, has gone up in value pretty much the same as here.

This article is worth a look: https://crosscut.com/2017/06/homelessne ... a-solution

"The city that solved homelessness"

Now the key thing there is that the solutions are NOT federal, nor are the "provincial", the solutions are local, but supported by federal and provincial efforts.

"Here are just a few of the many issues that Vienna has figured out: Mixing ethnic, age and income groups. Protecting open space. Aging in place. Transit-centered development. Building new train lines to the hinterlands before suburban housing developments are built."

The issue in Canada is that there isn't enough program funding directed from the federal and provincial levels to municipalities and communities to get out ahead of the issues.

So when you look at federal political promises regarding the housing issues, the key is will they fund municipalities and communities to get on with what needs to be done, and set aside the constant turf wars federal-provincial-municipality that paralyze proper actions.

Housing a distributed service type of infrastructure and development that is best served when the level of government that is the best at distributed services - which is municipalities and communities are funded and helped to achieve optimal results, not hampered by provincial and federal centralized notions.

[fluffy]

Some municipal governments have adopted a practice called "inclusionary housing" where developers must agree to supply a percentage of any new housing project at "affordable" pricing as part of their permit application. Regulations were put in place to discourage speculators. Anyone who has been hanging around this forum long enough will remember John Zeger, he was a champion of stuff like this.

[The Green Barbarian]

Let the free-enterprise system do the job that God intended: survival of the fittest.

Or in this case - survival of those who want to work hard and follow budgets.

[common_sense_guy]

Think of how much more affordable housing would be if we didn't allow non-canadians to buy residential land.