Steve Pomeroy

Executive Advisor and Industry professor at Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative (CHEC) McMaster University

 

When Scotiabank Economics reported in 2023 that Canada’s non-market housing sector is only half the size of the OECD average, it sparked a rallying cry among housing advocates. If Canada wants to catch up to its peers, we need to double the share of homes that are permanently affordable — a “double-double” for our housing system.

That goal has since been embraced by the Carney government, which has pledged to “double the pace of homebuilding – from supportive and deeply affordable housing to homes the middle class can afford.” The ambition is laudable. But to make it real, we first need to know the size of the base we’re doubling.

A new analysis prepared for the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association, examined seven decades of data to estimate how many non-market homes Canada actually has. These include public, co-operative, and non-profit housing built or acquired under various federal and provincial programs.

The findings reveal a sobering trend. Canada’s non-market housing stock peaked at just over 5.2 per cent of total housing in 1996. [Chart 1: The Shrinking Share of Non-Market Housing]. Since then, even as total housing supply has grown, the share of non-market homes has slipped to 4.54 per cent by 2024 — a relative decline that has quietly eroded the foundation of affordability.

This decline is not due to policy hostility but policy neglect. After Ottawa withdrew from new social housing funding in 1993, most provinces also pulled back. A modest federal re-entry began in 2001, followed by the 2017 National Housing Strategy (NHS). Yet even with these initiatives, production remains a fraction of what it once was.

Much of today’s housing debate fixates on “supply shortage.” But we need to be clear what kind of supply we’re talking about. In the past five years, purpose-built rental starts have surged to more than 80,000 annually — a huge leap from the 20,000 annual average in the 1990s. Yet most of these new rentals enter the market at rents exceeding 150 per cent of average market rent.

That’s great for investors, but not for the median renter earning $62,000 a year — or for the 1.5 million Canadian households in core housing need. Simply put, the market cannot deliver affordability on its own. When public subsidies are directed to private developers, affordability typically expires after 20 years. Those units eventually drift up to market levels, eroding the stock of permanently affordable homes.

By contrast, the non-market sector — non-profits, co-ops, and community housing providers — keeps homes affordable in perpetuity. The units are owned by mission-driven organizations, not investors seeking speculative gain. This is the part of the housing system that Canada needs to scale up dramatically.

Doubling Canada’s current stock of non-market housing — to about 1.5 million homes — sounds bold but achievable with sustained effort. It would mean producing an additional 750,000 non-market units, roughly 50,000 per year for 15 years.

To put that in perspective, Canada built 600,000 non-market homes between the 1960s and 1990s — before we had the financial tools, institutional capacity, or data systems that exist today.

A broader target is already being discussed within the community housing sector. The Centre for Community Housing Transformation’s 2024–28 Strategic Plan envisions non-market housing reaching 20 per cent of total stock, roughly in line with the share of households in core housing need plus those already in non-market housing. That would truly deliver on the promise enshrined in the National Housing Strategy Act: the right to adequate housing for all Canadians.

Getting there will demand more than money. It requires re-engineering how we design, fund, and deliver housing programs. Federal and provincial governments must work in a more coordinated and collaborative partnership to:

• Commit to stable, multi-year funding streams that community organizations can plan around.
• Simplify program design and move away from fragmented, competitive funding rounds.
• Prioritize permanent affordability, ensuring subsidies create lasting assets rather than time-limited affordability windows.
• Leverage public land for non-market housing at scale, as other countries do.
• Support acquisition strategies that allow non-profits to purchase existing rentals before they are lost to financialized investors.

These steps would allow the non-market sector to operate as a true partner — not a junior participant — in meeting national housing goals.

Expanding non-market housing is not charity; it’s infrastructure. It stabilizes households, lowers social costs, and creates the foundation for inclusive economic growth. Other OECD countries recognized this long ago. Canada can too.

The goal of a “double-double” in non-market housing isn’t just a catchy slogan. It’s the scale of response required to restore balance to a housing system that has tilted too far toward speculation. If we can mobilize resources to double the market supply, we can do the same for the homes that make housing affordable for everyone.

Now that would be a double-double worth ordering.

Read the full report.