Canada’s mayors have sounded the alarm about a drastic shortage of rental housing across the country.
One-third of Canadians are renters, yet apartment construction has accounted for just 10 per cent of all new residential building over the last 15 years, according to a new report released by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) according to The Star.
A virtual doubling in house prices the last decade has pushed home ownership further and further out of reach of many Canadians and left municipalities like Brampton with waiting lists of 15,000 people and growing for affordable rental units, said Brampton mayor Susan Fennell, also co-chair of FCM’s Big Cities Mayors caucus.
While there is enough social housing in Canada right now for almost 700,000 lower-income Canadians, that makes up just 5 per cent of the country’s housing stock and isn’t nearly enough to keep up with demand, the report notes.
Condos have become a secondary form of rental accommodation in bigger cities like Toronto, but they are often too high-priced for many renters, and too small for most families, Fennell noted.
Looking for property in Canada ? Come to Canada Live, in London, Edinburgh and Birmingham in February 2012.
