After grim housing affordability report, critics look to Doug Ford's government for a plan

Critics say a recent report from the federal government's housing agency is another grim sign that Ontario politicians are not only dropping the ball on affordability, but at a level that they didn't anticipate.

Last Thursday, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) released forecasts that suggest the province's goal of building 1.5 million homes in the next decade isn't nearly enough to keep up with the rate of population growth.

By 2030, if construction continues at current levels, CMHC says Ontario will be 1.85 million homes short of the number needed to get prices down to 2003-04 levels, when the average house cost $500,000. CMHC says as of 2021, the average price of a home in Ontario was $871,000.

For Jacob Dawang, a housing advocate with the organization More Neighbours Toronto, the report was a tough pill to swallow.

"I felt a bit of despair … just knowing how fast and how much action we need to take today to actually make housing affordable again," Dawang said.

He wants politicians to do more and to do it far faster. 

"They're either moving too slowly … or many municipalities and local politicians are in denial of the housing supply crisis and do not want to take action," he said.

In response to the report, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Monday that lack of supply is one of the main reasons for the housing crisis and wants to focus on finding vacant or surplus government property to alleviate it. Speaking alongside Toronto Mayor John Tory, Ford said all governments need to do more and work together.

But critics say many of the solutions, ranging from ending exclusionary zoning to allowing "as of right" developments, lie in reforming the NIMBYism housing culture and implementing the recommendations released by the Housing Affordability Task Force (HATF) in February. The political will to act on those is needed, they say.

"We don't need more reports," says Mark Richardson, the technical lead for volunteer group Housing NowTO. 

"We need more housing, and there's a bureaucratic and political preference to kick the can just a little bit further down the road."

Both Richardson and Dawang say residents' associations that campaign against big projects that would add density to single-family neighbourhoods, and politicians who cater to those groups for votes, are still some of the biggest obstacles to housing reform in Ontario.

"We need to make difficult choices. We need to make them now … and we need to be willing to upset the neighbours," says Richardson.