Housing: stopping buyers seeking only income

Some people buy many homes during a pandemic for investment reasons. It raises the price for everyone said Ms. Houle in an interview with Behind the scenes power.

If he believes the federal government has the power to intervene, he is not yet in a position to say how. Marie-Josée Houle began her three-year term in February. He needs to collect more data before suggesting solutions.

Housing has become a commodity. The phenomenon is not just about houses.

The price of rental housing is also too high. Companies bought them and made the so -called adjustments. They evicted tenants to renovate the apartments with the aim of increasing the rent. We have no control over vacant units, Ms. added. Houle, so any landlord can raise the price of rent. Even the provinces implementing price controls did not survive the scheme.

The federal defender warns those who point to foreign speculators as being more responsible for the situation. They represent only 5% of consumers. When you target a foreigner, it’s like saying: look at the others. In fact, 95% are Canadian investors or investment companies. So we need to go further here.

Marie-Josée Houle has several tools that she can use to identify systematic problems existing in the country in order to provide recommendations. He will closely monitor the response of governments to his reports to ensure that the money invested by all levels of government reaches the people who need it most.

Racial people, Indigenous people, people with disabilities, homeless people and women are the groups most affected by the housing shortage. For these people, as for all Canadians, access and affordability are important, Ms. Houle, but the right to housing has other aspects. It’s not just a matter of affordability. We are talking about health and safety. We want housing to be adequate for their needs. We always need to revisit the issue of housing as a human right.

It took 30 years to get to this crisis and the federal advocate believes there are no miraculous solutions to solve the problem in the short term. Marie-Josée Houle believes the federal government has shown their willingness to remedy this by developing a national housing strategy and by investing four billion dollars in the final budget for the construction of 100,000 units, in addition to adding a billion and a half dollars for the affordable housing fund.

The first milestones are in place, but it will take time to rebalance the market. This will require effort on the part of Ottawa, provinces and municipalities.