As rents soar, tenants organize local protests. But what's needed for a national housing movement?

Striking tenants who are refusing to pay big rent increases in several buildings in Toronto's west end say they've been flooded with support from across the country.

York South-Weston Tenant Union organizer Bruno Dobrusin said support for their rent strike has been "overwhelming." Not only are people paying attention, but he said they're interested in learning how to organize themselves.

"It's a hopeful sign that people are rising up and fighting back," said Dobrusin.

"We're seeing that there is more and more demand for broader movements. But provincially or nationally, the question now is how can we support each other?"

Advocates like Dobrusin say Canadians shut out of the country's tight housing market may be more likely to consider organizing as a way to push for solutions to the housing crisis.

While they say there's an appetite for change that can make way for a widespread movement aimed at creating more affordable and accessible housing, there's enough obstacles facing both organizers and residents to keep it from getting off the ground.

"Folks are seeing no change, no improvements year after year," said Ricardo Tranjan, a political economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a research group based in Ottawa. 

Rents have been steadily increasing nationally since 2021 and hit a record-high last month. According to real estate research firm Urbanation, average asking rents nationally sat at $2,042 in June, passing the previous record set in November 2022. 

"I think folks are starting to be more open to the notion that the missing link is not ideas, the missing link is not technical solutions. The missing link is the political will to make change and … it will require some pressure," Tranjan said. 

While discontent may be brewing among precariously housed Canadians, that doesn't mean new homes aren't being built. 

Data from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) shows Canada has ramped up construction in recent years, including over 240,000 new home starts in 2022, just slightly down from the record-high 244,000 units started in 2021. Additionally, Statistics Canada data shows that from 2019 to 2021, housing stock growth outpaced population growth in Toronto and Vancouver, two of the hottest markets in the country.

But CMHC has said at the current pace of construction, Canada is still short on supply. It projects almost 2.3 million housing units will be added to the market by 2030, bringing the country's total housing stock to 19 million — but that's 3.5 million units short of achieving "housing affordability for everyone living in Canada," the CMHC said.

Mary Rowe, president and CEO of the Canadian Urban Institute research group, said it's not necessarily how many units are being built, it's about what kind, and where. 

"The pattern of development has gone where the highest rate of return is," said Rowe, pointing to a push toward single-family and detached homes when private developer housing took off. That mainly started after the federal government ended programs geared toward social housing in the 1990s.