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FACTSHEET
November 22, 2001

Six quick facts about housing
and homelessness in Canada


Fact 1: GROWING HOUSING CRISIS:

More than 1.7 million tenant households - about 4.6 million people - are in "core need" of affordable housing, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. This includes 2.25 million Canadians in more than 833,000 tenant households living in overcrowded, unaffordable or substandard rental housing. They are living on the brink of homelessness. The rental vacancy rate in Canada's metro areas has dropped to a dangerously low 1.6% - the lowest since records were started in 1987. In many parts of the country, there simply isn't enough housing to meet the local needs.


Fact 2: DEEPENING HOMELESSNESS DISASTER:

More than a quarter of a million Canadians, including tens of thousands of infants and young children, will experience homelessness this year. There have been more than 220 confirmed deaths of homeless people in Toronto alone, according to the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee. A growing number of homeless deaths are being reported across Canada. Homeless shelters in Calgary, Edmonton, Hamilton, Kitchener, London, Barrie, Montreal, Ottawa, Regina, Peel, Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg and other places have all reported huge increases.


Fact 3: GROWING AFFORDABILITY CRISIS:

Rents are rising in every one of Canada's 26 metro areas, often faster than the rate of inflation. Meanwhile, tenant household incomes are falling. From 1984 to 1999, tenant incomes dropped by 3%. Tenants are squeezed between rising rents and falling income. In Ontario, landlords filed almost 64,000 applications for evictions in the year 2000, while another 40,000 tenant households faced eviction in Quebec.


Fact 4: FEDERAL, PROVINCIAL HOUSING CUTS:

Ottawa cut almost $2 billion from federal housing spending from 1984 to 1993. Provincial and territorial governments cut $480.5 million from housing spending from 1993 to 2000. Almost all the cuts came from the two richest provinces: Ontario ($303.8 million) and Alberta ($194.1 million).


Fact 5: NO NEW HOUSING:

The federal government stopped funding new social housing in 1993. Quebec is the only province that still funds new housing. Almost no new affordable private rental housing is being built. In many parts of Canada, the loss of existing rental housing from demolitions and conversions has outpaced new construction, leading to a net loss of rental units.


Fact 6: HUGE GOVERNMENT SURPLUSES:

All levels of government posted a consolidated surplus of $25.7 billion last year. On November 13, 2001, the federal finance department announced that the national surplus for September was $2.5 billion, with a cumulative budgetary surplus of $13.6 billion for the year-to-date. Ottawa and some provinces are choosing to reduce public revenues through tax cuts. On January 1, 2001, Ottawa launched what it calls "the largest tax cut in Canada's history" - a $100-billion five-year tax reduction plan. Low-income renter households and homeless people pay little or no taxes and get no benefit from tax cuts.

 

 

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