Should Canadians offer up spare rooms to help with housing crunch?
Global News
The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation forecasts a need for 3.5 million more homes by 2030 than the country is on track to build.
With many Canadians struggling to find a place to live with rising home prices and interest rates, governments at both provincial and municipal levels are trying new methods — but those in the industry say building more homes is the key factor to actually solving Canada’s housing crisis.
The calls to keep the focus on building more comes after Nova Scotia Municipal Housing Minister John Lohr last week announced the government was extending its contract with the national online home-sharing platform Happipad, and called on residents who may have a spare bedroom to consider opening up their home to share.
The platform brings together renters seeking affordable, month-to-month accommodation with residents who have rooms to rent in their home. Lohr said this could mean housing for a variety of groups including students, health-care workers or tradespeople.
“It’s just a very small part of everything that we’re doing as a government to try to address the housing crisis,” Lohr said in an interview with Global News.
“We think it will be beneficial right across the province, not only in communities where we have had traditionally had this going on with our universities and colleges, but also in other parts of the province where we know there’s health-care workers needing a place to stay or, you know, people coming into a community on a temporary basis to do work need a place to stay.”
Happipad says it conducts background checks before matching renters with hosts, with the provincial government saying rents — which are paid to Happipad and then passed onto the home owner — are typically at rates below those of other rentals in the market.
The non-profit is nationwide and, according to its estimates, there could be more than 12 million empty bedrooms in homes across the country.
And the idea is that it could help alleviate some of the concerns that come with renting, such as timely payment of rent or, as Lohr describes, helping to make a “good match” between renter and home owner.