I agree on both the transportation and housing fronts; however, with respect to housing I'm not sure many of the issues aren't as they are presented in the media.
General housing costs on an absolute basis are clearly inflated by cyclical market conditions that may or may not ease based on macro-economic conditions. On a relative basis your competition for housing is reflective of the demand from others so it's a major quality of life problem but not necessarily indicative of a general economic problem. Affordable housing for all would be great for median quality of life but it may be indicative of poor economic prospects for all.
With respect to social or "affordable housing" (really subsidized housing): the much published chronic shortage and quality of units is actually not telling us anything. Good quality, below market units would always have massive wait lists no matter what you do. The real question is who needs to live in these units and therefore how many do we need? Like what's the point of building units and housing people at 80% of market value if you need more units for people to afford who are subsisting on Ontario Disability payments which can't come close to that 80% level? My understanding (and correct me if I'm wrong) is that TCHC has all kinds of underutilized capacity while at the same time people are waiting decades for spots? What societal objective are we trying to achieve with TCHC and who is asking those questions?
Similarly, with shelter services we keep hearing about the crisis. There certainly is a crisis but how much is it just a systemic lack of direction? Certain segments of the population ( such as women with serious mental health and addiction problems ) are dangerously underserved is my understanding and yet a graphic on homelessness in an article I read a while back showed there has been virtually no increase in the percentage of the domestic population trying to access shelters. Virtually all the increased demand has come from refugees. Why are refugees being housed in a system for domestic homeless?
I think there are many things to unpack here.
First we have to differentiate ownership from rental.
On that front, we clearly have real estate costs that have risen beyond normal cyclical highs.
I would describe the pricing as irrational and unsustainable based on any normative economic model.
Yet it is sustaining (thus far) and that suggests we need to look at what changed.
I think we have a pretty obvious answer which is that the proportion of buyers of homes and condos doing so as investments, some renting them out conventionally and/or in airbnb style, others not, are at the root of this.
We can see what has changed over time, ie. new platforms for renting like airbnb, greater income inequality, condos moving much more towards pre-sales of multiple units to preferred brokers/buyers, lower down payment requirements etc.
I would argue we have to unwind some of those changes to restore a more normative market.
We can pick and choose from a menu of options, but I would suggest something like
1) raise all down payments back to 10%
2) however, down payments on second and subsequent properties should have to be much higher, say 50%. This would reduce market speculation.
3) likewise, I would be inclined to raise capital gains tax back to 75% (that would hit me, but I'm ok w/that)
4) I would also be inclined to take 'shadow market' issues around beneficial ownership
5) We have to restrict airbnb and like companies as they are taking homes out of both the rental and sale market. Restricting them to being rented only by a live-in owner, for a maximum number of days each year would put more property back in play.
Once we get there..........we have to take a closer look at rental.
I think some of the above changes would help increase long-term rentals at the expense of short-term or properties held vacant, but more is needed.
I would suggest two actions here:
1) We need to restore CMHC back commercial mortgages on long-term rentals, in exchange for holding rents down in the units backed by same.
The lowered cost (taking a commercial finance rate from 8% to 4% represents a substantial savings that can be passed on to a renter. Likely in the range of an 6% reduction to market prices as of right.
But the additional pressure from competition would lower them further.
2) Fully lower multi-residential property tax to the same as the single-family home class but do so all at once, with a requirement that the savings be passed through to tenants.
This would lower rents in the range of $125 for a typical renter.
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Most of the rest comes down to the need to raise incomes.
Lets note that if you raised minimum wage to what it is in NYC right now, $15USD, that would be $20CAD per hour, which, roughly, works out to an extra $1,000 per month gross, and probably about $750 net per month for a full-time worker.
That would make a lot of people much more comfortable in terms of housing costs.
For those on retirement incomes, the answer is raising the retirement age, but reinvesting the savings in taking CPP to a 40% pension (its current moving from 25% to 33%) and restoring OAS to a 20% income replacement on average from the 14% it has eroded to.
That leaves those on ODSP and OW.
While raising the incomes for this last group is unlikely to make private housing affordable to single-income households it may help for dual-income households.
Its worthwhile either way.
So let's just consider where that incomes is today, vs where it used to be.
Today a single person on OW gets just $733 per month had it simply kept pace with inflation (as opposed to the reduction and freeze imposed by Mike Harris) would be $1,027 today.
While someone on ODSP current gets $1,169 per month, but if they hadn't faced an extended freeze they'd be at $1426 per month.
Just recovering to those levels would ease the housing crisis substantially.
It would also help if the shelter allowance rate was varied to account for cost of housing in the GTA. An extra $300 a month for a single, up to $500 for a family would go a long way.
