Over 400,000 homes need to be built annually to fix Canada’s housing crisis, report says

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Projections show that Canada needs to produce over 400,000 affordable homes annually to return to accessible living standards.

A recent report by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) showed new data on where the country needs to improve its housing infrastructure.

Based on the data collected, 430,000 to 480,000 affordable homes will need to be constructed each year to return to standards not seen since 2109.

“Doubling the pace of housing construction in Canada is achievable, but not without a significantly larger and modernized workforce, more private investment, less regulation, fewer delays, and lower development costs. It will also require significant innovation in construction technology and growth in labour productivity,” said Aled ab Iorwerth, Deputy Chief Economist for CMHC, in an official statement.

In terms of metropolitan areas with the largest gaps in adequate housing supply, the list is as follows:

• Montreal
• Toronto
• Vancouver
• Calgary
• Ottawa-Gattineau
• Edmonton.

For the GTA, which currently holds second place on the list, housing incentives would need to increase by a staggering 70 per cent over the next decade if affordability issues were to be resolved.

The CMHC’s report noted that while southern Ontario’s major municipalities have been seeing a substantial rise in rental property construction, a substantial amount of work still needs to be done to address homeownership prospects.

On a provincial scale, Ontario is currently seeing the highest cost of housing, next to Nova Scotia.

As a result of these dire numbers, representatives with the CMHC hope that all levels of government will mobilize emergency housing strategies as soon as possible, as Iorwerth added “By estimating housing supply gaps across Canada, our goal is to ensure policymakers from all orders of government, as well as the private sector, understand the scale of the challenge.”

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