Dreams and Realities on the Home Front: Canadians’ Call for Government Action on Housing Affordability

Key Findings Overall, a strong majority of respondents from both the BC Lower Mainland and the GTHA want to see the federal government get back into building housing (80%), with 41% wanting the Government of Canada to get back into building more non-market housing, and 39% looking for a “mixed” approach to let developers build more market housing with non-market housing. Housing affordability is a concern for most respondents (81%)-it’s either a top concern (24%) or within their top five concerns (57%). More than a third of respondents in the Lower Mainland and the GTHA (37%) say that they cannot afford their current housing situation if the cost of their monthly rent or mortgage payments increased by 10% in the next year. Most (57%) think they are spending over 30% of their before-tax househoAAld income on their rent or mortgage and half (52%) have at some point felt at risk of losing their home or becoming housing insecure. 80% of renters hope to own their home at some point, but most think it's unlikely (23%) or very unlikely (56%) that they could purchase a home in the next five years. Most think that foreign investors (48%) are the most responsible for housing becoming more expensive, followed by the federal government (39%), real-estate developers (32%) and corporate landlords (31%). More than half of respondents thought the following policies would really or might help them: Instructing the Bank of Canada to consider lowering interest rates (68%) Giving people the option of more easily moving to different lenders when they re-negotiate their mortgage (63%) Offering incentives to developers to build affordable, non-market rental housing (60%) Using government-owned land to develop affordable rental units with rent caps (57