The Evolution of Canada’s Social Housing Sector: History, Debates, Policies

We cannot understand our current housing situation and how best to move forward if we do not know and understand how we got here. The debates of the past over housing policy, what course of action to take in the mix of government and private sector provision and regulation, are not too dissimilar to the debates of the present.

Session 2 Powerpoint presentation: PDF of Session 2 Powerpoint 5-May-2020

Guest expert for discussion of significant housing system and housing policy change: Duncan Maclennan Audio recording of the discussion with Duncan

Duncan Maclennan is an applied economist with interests in cities, neighbourhoods, infrastructure and housing. He is currently Professor of Public Policy at the University of Glasgow, Professor of Strategic Urban Management and Finance at the University of St Andrews, and a Professorial Research Fellow in Urban Economics at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. His current research is concerned with economic drivers and consequences of metropolitan investment strategies for infrastructure and housing and of the fiscal and spending autonomies in sub-national levels of government. He now lives in Nova Scotia and Scotland.

- - Weblink to CV & Publications
  - PDF of presentation for our discussion with Professor Maclennan
  - An important recent paper: MacLennan, D., & Miao, J. (2017) “Capital, housing and inequality in the 21st century,” Housing, Theory and Society, 34(2), 127-145. PDF

Readings

Bacher, J.C. (1993) “Canadian Housing Policy in Perspective,” Chapter 1 in his Keeping to the Marketplace: The Evolution of Canadian Housing Policy, Montreal: McGill-Queen's U Press, 3-36. PDF Entire Book The patterns of housing-policy debate vary as they flow from trade union halls to chambers of commerce, from social-work associations to real estate boards to co-operative groups, public-housing tenants' associations, and all levels of government. In these often heated discussions, which would, through the century, penetrate remarkably varied quarters of Canadian society, reformers and their opponents would cross many lines of class and consciousness.
Suttor, Greg (2016) “Conclusion,” from his Still Renovating: A History of Canadian Social Housing Policy, McGill-Queen's University Press, 171-195. PDF This chapter first provides a summary of the six turning points in the history of Canadian social housing policy and then outlines the broad themes that emerge from this policy history.
Hulchanski, J.D. (2006) “What Factors Shape Canadian Housing Policy? The Intergovernmental Role in Canada’s Housing System,” chapter 10 in Canada, State of the Federation 2004, eds. R. Young and C. Leuprecht, McGill-Queen’s University Press, pp. 221-247. PDF This chapter outlines a conceptual framework for thinking about Canada’s housing problems and offers an explanation for the policy role played by the different levels of government. Three main building blocks for such a conceptual framing are presented.
Whitehead, C. (2017). Social housing models: Past and future. Critical Housing Analysis, 4(1), 11-20. PDF There will always be a need for sub-market housing provision. But equally there are increasingly diverse ways of meeting that need. So, does traditional social housing – let by public and non-profit landlords to mainstream tenants - have a future?
Maclennan, D. (2019) Conclusions, Shaping Futures: Towards Real Housing Policies[10 conclusions/principles for housing policy reform], Chapter 12 of Shaping Futures: Changing the Housing Story, Australia, Britain, Canada, pages 109-114. PDF The ten broad conclusions of this report are presented as, in the constructive sense, a provocation about possibilities for change. They are definitive and assertive that major policy settings for housing policies must change but deliberately avoid being specific and certain about what will work in particular national and local settings. They are general directions, or principles, for, rather than specific routes to, change. They aim to end decades of darkness in housing policy making into a more enlightened approach to understanding what housing outcomes achieve and what policy possibilities need to be considered.

Supplemental (optional) Readings

CMHC (2018) About Affordable Housing in Canada, Ottawa. PDF
Sousa, J. (2013) “Canadian Public Housing Policy and Programs,” Chapter 1 in his Building a Co-operative Community in Public Housing: The Case of the Atkinson Housing Co-operative, pp. 11-32. PDF This chapter has a focus on Canada's public housing program, 1949 to the 1970's (e.g., which is much of the housing that the Toronto Community Housing Corporation currently manages).
Maclennan, D., Pawson, H., Gibb, K., Chisholm, S. and Hulchanski, J.D. (2019) Shaping Futures: Changing the Housing Story: Final Report. Glasgow: Policy Scotland. Weblink to project & report
SGS Economics and Planning (2020) Economic Impacts of Social Housing, Canberra: Community Housing Industry Association. PDF

What do Neoliberalism and Financialization have to do with housing & Human Rights?

United Nations (2017) The Financialization of Housing: Report of the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing. General Assembly A/HRC/34/51. PDF
Aalbers, M. B. (2016). The financialization of housing: A political economy approach. Routledge. PDF
MacLennan, D., & Miao, J. (2017) “Capital, housing and inequality in the 21st century,” Housing, Theory and Society, 34(2), 127-145. PDF
Rolnik, Raquel (2013) “Late Neoliberalism: The Financialization of Homeownership and Housing Rights,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 37(3), 1058-66. PDF
Walks, Alan (2016) “Our Mortgaged Future: Understanding the overleveraged state of Housing Finance in Canada, Alternatives Journal, Sept. Web Link
Kalman-Lamb, G. (2017). The financialization of housing in Canada: intensifying contradictions of neoliberal accumulation. Studies in Political Economy, 98(3), 298-323. PDF