Housing should be a human right, but now it's not even a utility; it's a luxury good for the wealthy that even the poor must find a way to afford.
this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2023
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Housing should be a human right
It is. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, of which Canada is party to, made it as such.
Unfortunately the UDHR is not enforceable...
It is by way of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, among others.
That's great and all, but what can be done with this? Of course we can't just go to our landlords and be like "uh...ma freedoms!".
What do you want to do with it?
Well....not paying stupid amounts for a roof over my head, let's start there.
So you are looking for a way to infringe on the rights of others?
I wonder if this could be used to sue organizations that block housing construction?
"I want to build a 20-storey affordable housing project"
"The local councilman and neighborhood groups want it to be a 10-storey building"
"The Charter doesn't give a shit what they want"
I am in a small Ontario town of 12,000 people. Covid caused many rich people from Toronto to come down here and buy up property so they could rent it. I was paying 1000$ for a 3 bedroom that was just built about 5 years ago. It was a nice place and a great price, owned by a guy my father in law works with. He never raised the rent since we moved in.
Some guy from Toronto shows up and buys the property. Instantly raises our rent to the maximum allowed limit. Then when we moved out last year, he listed the place for 2500$... Who the fuck can afford 2500$ rent in a small town that doesn't even have a fucking movie theatre.. Our biggest employers are a fucking warehouse and regional federal government office.
Something needs to be done about this shit. About all this investment property BS.
The only thing that will truly fix it is to start building housing faster than the demand for new homes, which means developing denser housing. Unfortunately that will require changes to zoning rules in cities, and most cities are being run by people who benefit from the current system.
I have very low faith because the people in power with lots of money probably own several properties and use them for either current monetary gain through rent, or retirement funds when they sell.
A reminder: rent is the purest form of supply/demand in the housing market. Nobody rents multiple units to sit on them the way people do to buy them. If prices are going up, that means vacancy is low and there just aren't enough units to rent compared to the number of people who are looking for a unit. Landlords hiking prices are hiking prices because somebody will pay that higher price.
The solution has to involve either building a crapload more units, or having less people who need housing (as always, Malthusians are invited to go first). Anybody who is proposing other approaches to this problem is either a con-man or an idiot. You cannot redistribute your way out of a shortage.
I need you in every housing thread I post here.
I honestly try to be That Guy on this subject but I am getting tired of the swarm of downvotes from "well this is dumb we just need to do the simpler thing and abolish capitalism" contingent.
Offer and demand should be taught in high schools.
You cannot redistribute your way out of a shortage.
There are more empty buildings than homeless people. There are "investment properties" sitting empty all over.
The problem is the greed of the parasitic landlord class.
There are more empty buildings than homeless people
This is a myth. What "empty building" studies usually cover is buildings that have no usual occupant. That includes things like student houses where the occupants still have a "home address".
30% of Canadians are domestic speculators. This isn't a myth, it's a fact.
Not arguing there, but GP was saying that a horrendous number of units are vacant which is simply not true. And there are a few cases where being a landlord isn't hoarding housing away from potential buyers, like in a University neighborhood where students and temporary staff will need access to rental houses. Now, obviously, student housing would be better handled by purpose-built multi-unit rental buildings but city hall says no.
Landlords are still parasites.
We don't need to build more investment and luxury homes. We need to focus on affordable housing.
"We" - as in the government or the taxpayer - don't build investment or luxury homes at all. Private businesses build them. All they need is permission to build them.
And they want to build them because there's demand for them. If you don't let them meet that demand, it will be met in a worse way: by rich people buying the homes of poor people and converting those into luxury investment housing. You can see that everywhere - flips, teardowns, gentrification, etc. That's what happens if you don't let enough new luxury housing get built: you think the luxury buyers are gonna stop buying?
So to solve the housing crisis, 2 things need to happen:
-
government needs to invest heavily in affordable housing and public construction infrastructure.
-
government needs to get the hell out of the way of the private sector that will happily profit from stopping the bleeding.
Your saying just cut out the process of converting or gentrifying altogether? What is the point of building homes for the rich when it's the poorest that need it the most. I agree we still need high end homes for high end earners but they're already in a great position and don't need, but rather want, more property. Maybe there should be a cap or heavy tax on owning multiple properties.
How do you do that? Let's say I buy a run-down house, spend 2 years dumping a bucket of money and sweat into it to make it into a nice place, and then sell it. That house is now converted and gentrified. That kind of "flip the house I live in" is how a lot of people got started into playing the housing market. And at slower pace that's just the normal process of how normal non-investment houses function as they go crazy-high in value, without even involving "investors".
How do you ban that? And more to the point why would you want to?
Summary and Key Moments
Provided by Kagi Universal Summarizer
Rental prices across Canada continue to surge, with the average asking price for a new tenant now at a record high of $2,117 per month, up 9.6% from last year. The double-digit rental increases are being seen nationwide, including a 17.3% jump in Calgary bringing its average to $2,068. Soaring housing costs have strained many renters' budgets, like Cassandra in Toronto who spends over half her pay on her $2,400 one-bedroom condo rental after a 14% increase. Experts note rental supply is not keeping up with strong demand from population growth and international students. While rental construction has increased, it will take years to significantly impact prices. With limited affordable options, tenants are advised not to move as rates rise almost everywhere in Canada.
- The average asking rent across Canada hit a record high of $2,117 in August 2022, up 9.6% from the previous year.
- Rents have been rising the fastest in Alberta, up 15.6% to $1,634 on average last month. Calgary saw a 17.3% increase to $2,068.
- Toronto and Vancouver still have the highest rents nationally at $2,898 and $3,316 respectively, but prices are increasing quickly in other parts of Ontario, BC, and Quebec.
- Construction of new rental units has increased but is not keeping up with strong demand from population growth and international migration.
- Individual landlords are passing on rising mortgage costs to tenants, contributing to rent hikes of over $100 per month since May.
- Even moving elsewhere in Ontario offers little relief as rents surge province-wide, up 9.9% compared to Toronto's 8.7% increase.
- Finding affordable units renting under $1,000 has become very difficult across Canada.
- Short-term solutions to address the housing shortage are limited given time lags to increase new supply.
- Tenants are advised not to move as rental options remain scarce and expensive.
- The large influx of newcomers and students is exacerbating the acute housing shortage in both the short and long-term.
I think the answer is to just buy a mobile home with an arctic package. They finance them over 20 years. You can drive anywhere you want. If you are paying over 24k a year to rent, you will pay it off very quickly.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Although the pace of increase has come down ever so slightly, the price of rental accommodation in Canada continues to go up, with the average new tenant now being asked to pay $2,117 a month.
The ongoing tumult in the housing market has garnered numerous headlines of late, as the Bank of Canada's campaign to tame inflation has caused mortgage rates to skyrocket.
"Despite rental apartment completions in Canada over the past 12 months reaching their highest level since the 1970s, rent growth has remained exceptionally strong," the report said.
That comes as no surprise to TorontonianΒ Cassandra Kranjec, who earlier this year begrudgingly agreed to a 14 per cent increase in her rent on a one-bedroom, one-bathroom condo in the Liberty Village neighbourhood.
While he says Canada's impressive population growth and surge in international students mayΒ pay off down the line for the economy, in the short term at least it is exacerbating an already acute housing shortage.
"People can jump on a plane this morning and arrive [in Canada] tonight, but we can't put a house on the production line today and have it ready by tomorrow βΒ it takes us three or four or five years to do that."
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