Ten years ago a Vancity report stated that Only 3% of Vancouver residents think they have reasonable rents or mortgages.
Vancouver has earned the dubious distinction of being the third least affordable city in the 2023 Annual Demographic Affordability Survey. Only Hong Kong and Sydney were less affordable. This is bad for our communities and it is bad for business. People are leaving Vancouver due the severe housing crisis.
Affordable housing requires new development models. There are many successful models around the globe but the one common denominator is community engagement in the process. Communities need to coalesce around this issue and ‘develop’ their own solutions.
In developing a financial model for a local charitable housing trust the analysis showed that if a non-profit housing development corporation (or other entity) could reduce the cost of development by 20% then they could build and market affordable home ownership and/or rental properties at up to 75% below market rates.
CMHC has reported that we need an additional 3.5M new homes by 2030 to address the affordability crisis. That is not a billion dollar problem it is a TWO TRILLION DOLLAR problem. We are working on a solution and if you are interested in learning about our plan to begin ‘Building Solutions to the Housing Crisis’ please send me an email and I will send you a link to our soon to be launched ‘i Invest in Housing’ project.