The federal government used to build social housing. Then it stopped. How is that going?

Many agree we're in the middle of a national housing crisis. So how did we get here?

It depends on who you ask, but for many housing experts, affordability advocates and municipal officials, the answer lies in part with a policy shift consecutive federal governments joined decades ago. A shift that some argue provides clues on how to fix the current housing conundrum.

Despite the prime minister's assertion earlier this month that housing isn't primarily a federal responsibility, it hasn't always been that way. 

Canada had long provided subsidized housing for people who couldn't afford to pay market value: for workers and returning veterans after the Second World War, for example, and in the 1970s and early 80s as pressure mounted for Ottawa to intervene during a series of recessions.

In the early to mid-1990s, back-to-back governments of different political stripes — first the Conservative government under Brian Mulroney and then Jean Chretien's Liberals — began pulling back from the business of affordable housing.

Facing big deficits and with neoliberalism taking hold globally, Ottawa reduced spending on housing, cut the federal co-operative housing program (one that saw the construction of nearly 60,000 homes) and eventually pulled the plug on building any new affordable housing units altogether. 

We now have a 30 year deficit in non-market housing, said Andy Yan, director of the city program at Simon Fraser University. 

"We're dealing with the consequences now," said Yan. "Specific populations are struggling for housing that is affordable, that has some kind of relationship to their income."

"We see who's paying the price on our streets in Canada." 

Canada's housing crisis has been the Liberal government's priority at this week's cabinet retreat in Charlottetown, P.E.l., with the country's housing minister, Sean Fraser, even suggesting the the federal government is considering a cap on the number of international students to ease the pressure on the housing market. 

According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC), Canada needs to build 5.8 million new homes — including two million rental units — by 2030 to tackle housing affordability.

It's not just the federal government that's passed the buck on affordable housing. Over a number of years in the late 90s and early 2000s, the Conservative government in Ontario, under Mike Harris, passed the file to municipalities to manage.

"Devolving responsibility in itself is not a problem," said Murtaza Haider, professor of data science and real estate management at Toronto Metropolitan University. That is, of course, "if it is accompanied by giving more resources," he said.

And according to Haider, that hasn't happened.