Canada's increasing housing affordability burdens

This study uses national survey and census data on shelter costs and income to describe changes in the proportion and the number of low-income households spending more than half of their income on shelter. While affordability problems increased consistently over the last two decades for almost all classes of households, the problems are highly concentrated among those with low-incomes. Women household maintainers are significantly more likely to experience problems and the number of income recipients in a household is a key indicator of a potential problem. While all regions and major cities had increasing problems, the data show major differences across regions and urban centres. No correlation is found between the growth of cities or the growth in rent levels and the growth of the proportion of low-income households with severe affordability problems. Housing prices were remarkably stable during the 1990s and cannot be claimed as the main cause of the escalating problem. However, strong correlations relate the growth of affordability problems to city size and to the prevailing rent level, suggesting that land rent is a factor in determining the problem's spatial incidence and that continued concentration of the population in major cities will continue to fuel the growth of the problem. The most disturbing finding is that, for the most vulnerable groups, the prevalence and severity of affordability problems worsened during the 1990s, reflecting the consequences of a larger and longer trend toward increasing income inequality in Canadian society. The paper points to other research which links the affordability issue to homelessness and argues that the trends in affordability burdens be considered as ripe for serious policy intervention at all three levels of government. While specific policy conclusions cannot be based on this study, the results do point to the growing need for a change in Canadian housing policy.