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WHY HOUSING FIRST FAILED IN CANADA  
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Laurence Braun-Woodbury
June 18, 2024
Canadian Dimension
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_ To end homelessness we must reclaim our housing infrastructure from
the investor class, produce homes as if they were essential goods
rather than investment vehicles. _

A tower crane seen from the marina of Port Credit, Mississauga,
Ontario, photo by Jarrett E. Hather/Flickr.

 

Every day more Canadians are being pressed into homelessness. Shelters
are overflowing. Tent cities
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Diseases more commonly associated with refugee camps have popped up
with alarming frequency in inner-cities
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the country. The numbers are devastating: up to 300,000 Canadians
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experience homelessness this year—a substantial increase
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the 235,000 who were homeless in 2016. Cities are scrambling to find
solutions; sanctioned encampments, increased shelter capacity, forced
removal by police. Nothing is working.

It’s a crisis the federal government has been trying to solve. In
2017 the Government of Canada launched the multi-billion
dollar Reaching Home Initiative [[link removed]],
which funded Housing First-oriented programming across the country.
Housing First focuses on providing unconditional, permanent housing as
quickly as possible to people experiencing homelessness, and
connecting them with other supportive services afterward. It is a
well-researched policy approach with a long track record
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successfully reducing homelessness in North America and Europe.

It should have worked here, too
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But it didn’t
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Despite the tens of thousands of people housed by dedicated teams of
social workers, more people are homeless now than ever before. It
turns out Housing First can only end homelessness if people can be
housed sustainably. No amount of time and money spent putting people
into homes can compensate for an investor-captured housing market
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pushes them out again.

If we want to understand how to make Housing First work in Canada, we
could do no better than talk to experts out of Finland, a nation with
one of the most successful
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First programs in the world. This is exactly what happened earlier
this year when federal Housing Minister Sean Fraser sat down
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from Finland’s Housing First system in a lecture hall at Carleton
University.

As the panel discussion began key differences between the Finnish and
Canadian approaches to Housing First quickly became apparent.
“Housing First doesn’t work without having the housing first,”
quipped Juha Kahila, head of international affairs for Finland’s
foremost housing NGO, Y-Foundation. “So we have a quite sizable
affordable housing stock in Finland, we have around 400,000 affordable
homes in Finland [almost 15 percent of the nation’s housing stock
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Finnish policymakers understand that if homelessness is going to be
brought to an end people need to be able to afford their homes. This
means that speculators, financialized firms, and other predacious
investors have to be kept in check. To accomplish this, the government
made up-front investments to build, own, and develop housing as a
state. The city of Helsinki, for example, owns its own construction
company, constructs purpose-built housing designed specifically to
accommodate low-income citizens, and owns 60,000 social housing units.
One in seven residents of the city live in city-owned housing. This
creates a price floor that keeps rents low for everybody. Juha
describes Finland’s philosophy of affordability in action: “they
[the city] own 70 percent of the land and their goal is to have 25
percent affordable housing in all the new living areas.”
Additionally, low-income citizens receive Kela
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or social security benefits, from the national government—a housing
allowance which can cover up to 70 percent of housing costs, including
rent, maintenance, water, and heating. Both renters and owners are
eligible to receive this benefit. The Kela guarantees that housing
stays affordable no matter your income.

By prioritizing heavy state involvement at all levels of the housing
system Finland has ensured housing costs are kept low while income
support is high. The result is that homes are treated as places to
live, not as speculative assets.

In response to this picture of a decommodified housing market,
Minister Fraser noted that “we had a 30 year period […] where the
government of Canada made a decision not to be invested in non-market
housing and we’re paying for it today.” When pressed on what could
be learned from the Finnish experience, Fraser responded: “There is
not a market solution to homelessness, governments need to act.” But
when it came time to discuss specifics, the minister’s solutions
consisted exclusively of government transferring funds to the private
sector to build and own new housing stock in private-public
partnership schemes. This is the same failed approach that his
government has taken since the 2017 launch of the Reaching Home
Initiative. It’s the same approach which has turned our nation’s
homes over to predacious investors and led to the worst affordability
crisis in Canada’s history.

This commitment to commodified housing is echoed by Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau who recently said, in a nod to baby boomer homeowners,
that “housing needs to retain its value
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The research on this is clear
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as long as Canada’s housing market is allowed to retain its (wildly
inflated) value, and as long as the private sector is permitted to
charge extortionate rents for housing, more Canadians will fall into
homelessness every day.

As the federal Liberals continue to push Canadians onto the streets,
it falls to the provinces and cities to act. Municipal and regional
governments can deploy a range of tools to help mitigate the worst
effects of the affordability crisis, including rent control, eviction
protection, investments in non-market housing, new taxes on small and
large landlords, adjusted zoning laws, and housing-focused income
support. Unfortunately, most jurisdictions are going the other way:
provinces are removing rent controls across the country, city councils
waffle in the face of NIMBYism, and all levels of government are
shying away from providing income supports capable of supporting a
minimum standard of living.

The path forward is clear. To end homelessness we must reclaim our
housing infrastructure from the investor class, produce homes as if
they were essential goods rather than investment vehicles, and ensure
that all Canadians have the resources necessary to lead dignified,
comfortable lives. We can do all of these things. We can restore
housing affordability and end homelessness. The only thing we lack is
political will.

_Laurence Braun-Woodbury is a writer and community advocate. He has
over ten years experience serving adults experiencing poverty and
houselessness with various NGOs across the country. His debut
novel, Glamorous Failures
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was published in 2023._

_Canadian Dimension is the longest-standing voice of the left in
Canada. For more than half-a-century, CD has provided a forum for
lively and radical debate where red meets green, socialists take on
social democrats, Indigenous voices are heard, activists report from
every corner of the country, and the latest books and films are
critically reviewed. Our dedicated and longstanding readership is
comprised of activists, organizers, academics, economists, workers,
trade unionists, feminists, environmentalists, Indigenous peoples, and
members of the LGBTQ2 community._

* Housing
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* homelessness
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* Canada
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* Finland
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