Concrete recommendations to improve housing affordability by increasing supply
We’ve all seen the news lately—the housing market is red hot. While many provinces are grappling with affordability, Ontario’s crisis is the worst in the country. In fact, the average cost of a home in Ontario rose by 22.8% last year, pricing many would-be homeowners out of the market entirely.
On Tuesday, the Ontario Housing Affordability Task Force published a report containing 50 recommendations to address the province’s housing crisis. The report’s recommendations are clear: supply needs to be increased, and quickly. One of the ways to increase housing supply is to remove burdensome red tape that stands in the way of residential construction. The report makes a number of recommendations along these lines.
Governments around the country should take heed, as we need housing in all provinces. The federal government should also pay special attention to these well-developed recommendations and start to focus on supply rather than constantly tinkering with demand-reducing measures that have failed time and time again to produce the desired outcomes.