Population and Housing

[tomh009]

I would rather have them build a ton of socialized housing (yet operate it correctly, which should be easy after the lessons learned from 20th century socialized housing) than a bunch of patch work, half assed solutions they keep offering. Taxes don't really mean anything when it comes to taking people off the street, nor does mortgage stress. Those living pay cheque to pay cheque and the homeless aren't having daily anxiety attacks because of these things, they're struggling to know if they have enough money to pay rent or whether it's safe to pitch a tent - lest the city comes knock it down or some other homeless people come rob it. Intensification in urban areas only works if you actually promote affordable housing. I have yet to see evidence of that at a local level, especially when NIMBYs are able to cancel or hugely minimize projects because they think a building doesn't look good in their neighbourhood. Tiny homes don't address this problem in any regard because you need to own property and be able to afford to make them, connect them to utilities and pay taxes on them.

Nothing serious is being done and it's really naïve to think otherwise. Time does not wait when you are struggling to come up with rent versus feeding your kid breakfast or when you're living in a tent, worried someone might beat you up for your propane gas cooker.

Yes, if we are talking specifically about affordable housing, then most of those actions do not help.

I will disagree on the tiny homes/granny flats, though: it enables the homeowner to rent out the separate dwelling, rather than duplexing the main dwelling on the property. So, it should add some less-expensive units on the market, but it's no silver bullet, and the impact will be gradual.

We really should take this to the affordable housing thread ...