Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announces creation of $1.5-billion rental protection fund to help non-profits buy affordable rental apartments when they go up for sale
It’s good to see some kinda/sorta/almost direct spending on affordable housing being announced:
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the creation of a $1.5-billion rental protection fund that will provide a combination of loans and grants to help non-profits buy affordable rental apartments when they go up for sale.
It’s nowhere near enough, but it’s better than the neoliberal tHe FrEe MaRkEt WiLl SaVe Us shoveling that both the Liberals and Conservatives have been pushing.
The article explains how the number of homes affordable to people making $30k annually is crashing across the country (but less so in Quebec).
That fund is long overdue, affordable housing groups say, because the country is losing lower-cost rental properties – to renovictions, tenant turnover and demolitions – far faster than it can build them.
“It’s a lot more attractive to cut ribbons at new buildings,” said Terry Cooke, the chief executive officer of the Hamilton Community Foundation, one of the groups involved in the lobby effort.
“We already have 2,000 units in the pipeline,” said Katie Maslechko, chief executive of the fund, which received $500-million from the province and has already provided grants to help non-profits purchase three properties this winter.
fund must work quickly, Ms. Maslechko said: there are hundreds of apartment buildings in the province, with thousands of affordable rentals, at risk of being lost because non-profits don’t have the capital to move fast enough to purchase the properties.
Average rents have risen beyond what many low-income – and even moderate income – Canadians can afford, driven in part by real estate investing, gentrification and a surge in demand from a growing population.
“We’re so fixated on adding new supply that we’re blind to existing affordable housing that is lost right before our eyes,” said Brian Doucet, the Canada Research Chair in urban change and social inclusion at the University of Waterloo.
The original article contains 1,525 words, the summary contains 212 words. Saved 86%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !canada@lemmy.ca
This is the best summary I could come up with:
That fund is long overdue, affordable housing groups say, because the country is losing lower-cost rental properties – to renovictions, tenant turnover and demolitions – far faster than it can build them.
“It’s a lot more attractive to cut ribbons at new buildings,” said Terry Cooke, the chief executive officer of the Hamilton Community Foundation, one of the groups involved in the lobby effort.
“We already have 2,000 units in the pipeline,” said Katie Maslechko, chief executive of the fund, which received $500-million from the province and has already provided grants to help non-profits purchase three properties this winter.
fund must work quickly, Ms. Maslechko said: there are hundreds of apartment buildings in the province, with thousands of affordable rentals, at risk of being lost because non-profits don’t have the capital to move fast enough to purchase the properties.
Average rents have risen beyond what many low-income – and even moderate income – Canadians can afford, driven in part by real estate investing, gentrification and a surge in demand from a growing population.
“We’re so fixated on adding new supply that we’re blind to existing affordable housing that is lost right before our eyes,” said Brian Doucet, the Canada Research Chair in urban change and social inclusion at the University of Waterloo.
The original article contains 1,525 words, the summary contains 212 words. Saved 86%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!