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Homes for the many, not the money

Everyone deserves a safe, secure, affordable place to call home. Yet while corporate landlords and real estate investors profit from speculation, working class Canadians continue to struggle, putting more and more of their hard-earned money into the cost of shelter. Rents continue to skyrocket in many parts of the country and buying a home remains out of reach for millions of people.

Federal dollars for housing must benefit the public good, not private wealth. An Avi-led NDP will institute a national cap on rents, legislate new tenant protections, tax corporate landlords and ensure a public builder creates the affordable housing that the private sector has failed to deliver. With new neighborhood developments, there is a real opportunity to invest in community commons - like libraries, childcare, and recreation centres that will enable neighbours to come together, get to know each other, and thrive.

The federal government recognizes that housing is a fundamental human right for everyone in Canada, and yet, the number of people experiencing homelessness on a single night has almost doubled in the past six years. It's unconscionable that in one of the wealthiest countries on earth, people are sleeping in bus shelters and tents. Canada must end homelessness, which disproportionately impacts Indigenous, Black and racialized people, youth, seniors, women, queer people and more.

And there can be no reconciliation without housing justice for Indigenous communities. Righting this historic wrong is a moral and legal imperative that we cannot ignore.

That's why an Avi-led NDP will:

Cap the rents & protect tenants

It's hard to get by in this country when the rents are out of control. In Toronto, you can expect to pay $2,500 a month for a one bedroom apartment. In Montreal, rents have increased by 71% since 2019.

Four provinces have zero rent controls whatsoever. Others have weak protections riddled with loopholes. Corporate landlords are buying up rental housing, using algorithms to fix rent increases, and evicting tenants to set rents as high as the market will bear.

Enough is enough. The federal government can no longer turn a blind eye when families are being forced to choose between groceries and rent because of skyrocketing costs, or being forced from their homes by renovictions.

It's time to cap the rents. A national cap on rent will give power back to renters and make life more affordable by putting an end to steep rent hikes. It will also stop people from feeling trapped in their current homes, when leaving it can mean a 40% rent increase, or higher, for a new unit. The cap will mean that rent cannot be raised by more than the rate of inflation in each province or territory including for vacant units, so landlords cannot jack up rents between tenants. The federal government can do this by implementing backstop legislation that strengthens provincial and territorial rent controls.

Alongside a rent cap, we must strengthen anti-trust legislation and enforcement to stop corporate landlords from using algorithms to collude on increasing rents across multiple buildings and owners at a time.

An Avi-led NDP will also fight to protect tenants from renovictions and bad-faith evictions by making federal housing funding conditional on provinces and territories adopting national standards to stop landlords from evicting tenants just to raise the rent. Tenants deserve security, not having to live in fear of being kicked out every year.

In addition, an Avi-led NDP would advocate for these further tenant protections:

  • National standards for health, safety, accessibility and maintenance with clear landlord accountability for repairs and services.
  • Ensure accessible complaint processes, well-resourced tribunals, and legal support so that renters can enforce their rights without fear of retaliation.
  • Require provinces and territories to report publicly on renter protections as a condition of federal funding and establish a public national rental housing data system, including histories of ownership information to support enforcement and tenant advocacy.
  • A new federal fund to support tenant organizing so that neighbours can come together to demand repairs, stop evictions, and prevent unfair rent increases.

We also need to protect existing rental stock affordability by:

  • Preserving at-risk rental properties by establishing a community-managed federal acquisition fund, tying all federal subsidies to affordability retention clauses and a right of first refusal mechanism to prevent displacement and keep existing affordable housing. When rental properties go up for sale, the federal government should step in to ensure that public, nonprofit, co-op providers and land trusts buy them to make sure we don't lose truly affordable housing.
  • Partnering with universities, colleges and the provinces for a fast and far-reaching build-out of low-cost student housing to ease pressure on the general rental market.

Finally, it's time to put the weight of the federal government behind ending the apartment ban in big cities once and for all by making pro-density zoning reform a condition for receiving federal housing funds. Building a small apartment building should be as straightforward as building a single-family home anywhere in the country. Without better zoning rules, there is not enough land in our cities to meet the need for new units.

Reclaim housing for people, not profit

Our housing system is set up to reward investors over families, big corporations like real estate investment trusts (REITs) over renters and homeowners, and short-term profits over sustainable communities. Liberal and Conservative governments allow real estate speculation to pad corporate profits even as it bleeds working people dry and is a drag on the rest of the economy.

For too long, housing has been treated as a revenue vehicle for investors, and affordable housing for Canadians has eroded to the point of a crisis. The federal government must prioritize people's homes over corporate profit.

Housing can no longer be a luxury or an investment vehicle. To bring down housing costs and fully realize the right to housing, an Avi-led NDP would push for:

  • Realizing the Right to Housing by passing federal legislation enshrining housing as a human right, requiring that all federal programs and investments in housing prioritize use over profit. The legislation would establish a Federal Housing Secretariat - akin to the current Major Projects Office - to coordinate every federal housing lever and ensure Ottawa is working effectively with Provinces and Municipalities towards affordability for everyone. The Secretariat will coordinate housing policy across federal departments, ensuring federal housing spending and tax policy aligns with the right to housing.
  • Supporting non-profit and co-op housing by providing grants and low-interest funding streams, including CMHC lending, to support acquisition and development of genuinely affordable housing including rent-geared-to-income. Tie federal funding to perpetual affordability through 99 year commitments.
  • Increasing the inclusion rate of capital gains for residential properties owned as investments, encouraging investors to sell homes to families at reduced prices.
  • Offering affordable mortgage products through a public postal bank as an alternative to the big private banks.
  • Rein in the REITs.
    • Ending tax breaks, encouraging them to sell their assets at reduced prices to smaller players including cooperatives and land trusts. This can have the effect of not only capping rents, but actually reducing rents.
    • Stop REITs from receiving CMHC-insured loans unless funding non-market housing.
    • Ban REITs from buying up affordable housing.

Build a million public homes

Until the early 1990s, the federal government invested heavily in building non-market, co-op and social housing, in partnership with provinces and the non-profit sector.

An Avi-led NDP would get the federal government back into the public housing business by establishing a public builder to deliver one million social, co-op, non-profit and supportive homes within five years.

The agency would cut costs and speed construction by:

  • using federal lands for building where appropriate;
  • adopting modular and pre-fab designs that are already developed by the CMHC;
  • incorporating universal design principles so that homes are accessible, adaptable, and safe for people of all ages and abilities.
  • focusing on energy-efficiency, lowering energy bills and carbon emissions;
  • keeping rents significantly lower than market rates, but sufficient to cover costs over time.

The homes we need are not buildings in isolation, but part of the fabric of a society in which we care for each other and our most vulnerable. The public homes that we need to build should not just be safe and comfortable, but beautiful. Think of the public housing that a majority of Vienna residents live in - complete with art, swimming pools on roofs and other amenities. There's no reason for the public to be shabby, the public should be beautiful, it's ours.

At the same time, an Avi-led NDP would invest in creating community commons - shared social spaces, as part of the effort to build a million public homes, and make neighbourhoods better. Community commons can include childcare, libraries, recreation centres; these are the places where people can congregate and thrive.

End homelessness

It is unconscionable that more and more people are cast into homelessness in a country as rich as Canada. Each year, we see the number of unhoused people grow, with certain communities disproportionately affected – seniors, young people, women, 2SLGBTQIA+ people, racialized, Black and Indigenous people – across the country.

Conservative politicians prioritized encampment clearing while failing to build the deeply affordable housing that's required to actually solve the problem. Meanwhile, the Carney Liberal government is cutting housing spending by more than 50%.

Homelessness is a political choice, not an inevitability. What's required is an all hands on deck approach to stop homelessness before it starts, provide those without a home with safe and supportive accommodations that meet their needs, and do everything possible to keep people housed.

We also need a focus on early intervention to prevent homelessness from happening in the first place. Youth homelessness is a clear warning sign of a housing system under strain and a powerful predictor of chronic homelessness. Across Canada, nearly half of people experiencing homelessness first experienced homelessness before age 25, and those who become homeless before age 18 are significantly more likely to experience chronic homelessness later in life.

An Avi-led NDP will pursue a comprehensive strategy to end homelessness and ensure all Canadians have a safe and secure place to call home. Here's how:

  • Co-design federal housing programs from the ground up, with a new advisory council that is practitioner-led. The council would lead intergovernmental coordination on housing development and strategies to address homelessness, comprised of non-profit developers, co-ops, land trusts, and people with lived experience of homelessness to guide all federal housing program development.
  • Make supportive housing with wraparound services a priority of the National Housing Strategy. Establish national standards to ensure adequate and equitable access and quality for supportive housing.
  • Implement an income-tested housing benefit delivered through the tax system to renters, homeowners and people actively experiencing homelessness to ensure access to housing first. This would eventually form part of a more comprehensive guaranteed livable basic income for all who need it, establishing a social floor below which no one can fall.
  • Prevent youth homelessness by expanding transitional and supportive housing for young people across Canada, set youth-specific targets within the National Housing Strategy, treat youth housing as essential public infrastructure and invest in Housing First for Youth programs nationwide, recognizing that stabilizing youth today prevents chronic homelessness tomorrow.
  • Implement a dedicated strategy to address the urgent housing and settlement needs of refugees and asylum seekers. Many newcomers face chronic homelessness, lack of access to income supports and services. Remove barriers to income, benefits, and settlement services, and provide targeted federal support for safe, stable housing through municipalities and non-profits.
  • Establish a robust federal Gender-Based Analysis Plus (GBA+) specific to housing policy, developed with people with lived experience, and consistently applied to all major housing decisions to ensure that federal housing funds and programs address the disproportionate impact of homelessness on women, two-spirit, trans, and gender-diverse people who often experience homelessness differently. As part of this commitment, increase investment in transitional housing so those fleeing gender-based violence have a safe place to live.

Implement a For Indigenous, By Indigenous Housing Strategy

The housing crisis affecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities is a national emergency. Nearly one in six Indigenous people live in homes needing major repairs that are considered unsuitable for the number of people living there. This is a denial of fundamental human rights, and it has dire consequences for people's health and wellbeing.

Due to years of inaction by successive governments, the assessed need for Indigenous housing in urban, rural and Northern areas is over $6 billion. But instead of increasing investment to build the homes that are required, the current federal government is cutting back. Indigenous Services Canada funding for housing will drop from $1.36 billion to $310 million by 2028-29 and Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada's (CIRNAC) spending on housing will go from $550 million this year to $350 million in 2028-29.

This is unacceptable. Real reconciliation means closing the housing gap, and working side by side with Indigenous communities to ensure that everyone has a safe, healthy and comfortable home to live in. It is also fundamental to addressing the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people.

An Avi-led NDP will fight for the following:

  • Work with Indigenous leadership to develop, fund, and implement a national For Indigenous, By Indigenous housing strategy that allocates resources adequately to urban, rural and Northern Indigenous housing projects.
  • Allocate at least 20% of Federal housing investments to fund the expansion of supportive and deeply affordable housing for Indigenous communities.
  • Fund Indigenous nations and housing authorities to develop and operate the culturally relevant housing and housing supports needed within their communities.
  • Set clear, measurable goals, targets, and timelines for eliminating homelessness and core and severe housing need for Indigenous communities.
  • Respond to recommendations in the Calls to Justice from the Final Report on the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls by accelerating funding for programs dedicated to adequate housing opportunities for Indigenous women, girls, and gender-diverse people.
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