About the authors:ÌýÌýis a Full Professor and Associate Vice-President, Research atÌýÌýandÌýÌýis an Associate Professor in the School of Planning atÌý.
The (NHS) is a 10-year, $72-billion effort launched in 2017 to address key areas in the Canadian housing landscape. Its goals include increasing housing affordability and reducing homelessness. But research shows that halfway through implementing the strategy, the vast majority of people in — below the thresholds for housing adequacy, affordability or suitability — are not benefiting from NHS programs.
Housing need is measured differently across countries: for example, include:
- Housing-related expenditure, including rent, maintenance and repair, and utility bills such as water and electricity.
- The ratio of housing costs over income.
- Ability of households to keep the dwelling warm.
- Subjective measures on housing. These include the percentage who are satisfied with the availability of good, affordable housing in their city or area; who have not had enough money to provide adequate shelter sometime in the last 12 months; who are satisfied with the current public transit systems; who feel safe walking home at night; and who are satisfied with their city or area.
Using these measures and datasets from around the globe, the OECD concludes that housing expenditure increased on average by five percentage points from 2010 to 2015, although housing expenditure decreased in a number of OECD countries, such as Mexico, Bulgaria and Lithuania.
Housing cost burden as a share of disposable income is highest among low-income households, regardless of the country. The OECD considers people overburdened by housing costs if they spend over 40 per cent of their disposable income on housing. Housing insecurity has increased in most OECD countries in the past 15 years, though eight out of 10 Gallup poll participants (of which there were about 1,000 from each OECD country) were satisfied with their city/area.
Core housing need
In Canada, . That means they either live in housing that is unaffordable (defined as costing more than 30 per cent of their pre-tax household income), unsuitable (the size of their household is too large for their unit) or inadequate (their housing is in poor repair), and they