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As housing affordability remains top-of-mind for many middle- and low-income residents in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA), CivicAction has released their third report in their housing affordability series exploring the how and why of the current state of housing. While the first report delved into the far-reaching impacts of the housing crisis, and the second report explained the many factors contributing to the math of housing affordability, this third report, titled The What: Partnerships That Deliver Affordability, unpacks the different players involved in the process of providing housing, expanding on the strengths and shortcomings of each, and identifying a path forward that could lead us out of this crisis. UrbanToronto had the pleasure of speaking with Leslie Woo, CEO of CivicAction, about the report.
At its core, the third report is about making the case for partnerships and greater collaboration between the different players in the provision of housing. The current system, Woo argues, does not have the capacity to deliver the scale and typology of housing that we need. The report points out that despite $40.17 billion of federal funding through the National Housing Strategy over the past few years, there was only an increase of 2% in housing starts between 2023 and 2024, which amounts to 245,120 housing starts across the country - far short of the 500,000 per year target needed to meet Canada's housing needs. Many projects remain stalled, unable to get out of the ground, despite the massive amount of government investment available.
"Money alone does not create the housing we need," Woo explained. "It's not just an issue of money. And clearly, we can approve, but we can't build. So it's not just an approvals process issue. Also, the report sort of makes the point that it's an economic competitive issue, not just a social issue. There's sort of a ceiling to the current system for what it is capable of delivering, so throwing money at it isn't going to make it deliver more."
The report goes into detail about four different players involved in the housing industry, and how each can contribute a piece of the puzzle to solving the housing affordability crisis. In the last few decades, private developers have dominated the housing industry, and therefore bring with them a high degree of expertise when it comes to housing provision. However, they have encountered economic headwinds over the past couple years and have had to adjust, recalibrating to providing larger units or pivoting from condos to rentals to accommodate. They are taking on much more risk, but the report argues, they cannot do it alone.
Governments at all three levels play a pivotal role in housing provision. Municipal governments contribute through regulatory control, whether that be through land use and planning policies, approvals processes, or development charges. Their influence in affordability has its limitations, however. Woo uses the example of development charges. While reducing development charges may decrease the costs to build housing, that money is crucial to providing essential infrastructure in the form of parks, roads, transit, and community services. If this infrastructure is lacking, as explained in the previous reports, it does nothing to address the broader issues of affordability. This is an example of where provincial and federal governments can step in to support municipal governments through collaborative effort by helping in other ways to provide this infrastructure.
Financial institutions are another player in housing provision, as they supply the capital used to finance the construction of housing developments. Traditional lending models heavily favour what Woo describes as luxury homes, which carry less risk and a quicker return on investment. More affordable housing models may require different types of risk mitigation, partnerships, and timing for returns on investment that the current system cannot necessarily provide.
The final player identified in the report is non-profit housing providers, who contribute a small but necessary portion of the housing supply. The report describes the non-profit sector as being fragmented and primarily focused on supportive and low-income housing, but which possesses a unique programmatic expertise that can contribute to greater housing affordability across other housing models. They currently lack capacity to build at larger scales, but through appropriate partnerships, could play a larger role in the supply of affordable housing.
"When you go through each of them, you realize how they each have a piece of the puzzle," Woo explained. "The interdependency is so huge, which in my mind means that we sort of have a bit of governance challenge, and we don't have an inherent structure that would create the discipline to enable all these players to work better together." Woo adds: "I don't want to paint a totally dark picture, because there are examples of this happening, but not enough. And not at scale."
The report provides a few local and international case studies of successful housing models, with Woo citing the recently completed Dunn House in Parkdale as an example. It also identifies several additional players that could be engaged to help provide more affordable housing. These include large employers, such as hospitals or universities, with land and capital that could be used in providing housing for their employees; partnerships with indigenous communities, who also have access to land and capital, and are already engaged in developments around the GTHA like along the waterfront; and a more organized and expanded non-profit sector.
The final section of the report proposes some actions that could be taken to foster the partnership and collaboration it argues is lacking in the provision of housing, organized in terms of "quick wins", medium-term initiatives, and more long-term transformational changes. It argues for an adaptation of the current housing system, rather than a complete dismantling, by leveraging underused sectors and encouraging new types of partnerships. An example would be taking some of the currently stalled projects that already have planning approvals in place, and finding new funding models and partnerships that could get them out of the ground, whether that be through engaging with government entities, non-profits, or large employers as mentioned above. Woo also points to greater regional collaboration between municipalities, whose policy approaches to housing provision vary across the GTHA.
"Every site is different, every community is different, every unit is different," Woo elaborated. "It means two things: we need to work harder at finding what are the base things that need to be 'standardized', and how do we take more of a portfolio approach to have flexibility for each situation? We all say it all the time, there is no one way, there is no silver bullet. We need to understand and learn how to practice that."
Woo emphasizes that there is much cause for optimism, that our current system has the ability and capacity to adapt in order to deliver housing affordability. The problem is that the organization and leadership needed to bring everyone together to find a common solution is lacking. Woo likes to use a sports analogy: "The quarterback of a football team has all the plays on their wrist. And depending on the condition they adapt to the play, but everyone on that field has a role. There is the need for a bit of quarterbacking right now in order that the team and all the players can function well together. We are missing that team effort in addressing the issue of housing affordability."
The full report from CivicAction can be found here. The fourth and final report in the series will be released in the coming weeks, which will present a call to action to bring everyone together to address housing affordability in the GTHA. We will be back with a summary of the final report, but in the meantime you can join the discussion by leaving a comment in the space provided on the page below.
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UrbanToronto's research and data service, UTPro, provides comprehensive data on construction projects in the Greater Golden Horseshoe—from proposal through to completion. Other services include Instant Reports, downloadable snapshots based on location, and a daily subscription newsletter, New Development Insider, that tracks projects from initial application.
