As the federal government launches a new drive to address Canada’s housing crisis with Build Canada Homes, a new report released today by the National Housing Council (NHC) offers a comprehensive framework to assess the effectiveness of federal housing policy.

The report entitled Measuring What Matters: Proposing an Outcomes Framework for Federal Housing Policy, tackles a central question: how will Canadians know if housing policies are working?

Analysing the current health of Canada’s housing system, the report finds that:

• Affordability is declining: Home ownership is affordable in fewer than 20% of Canadian markets, and asking rents are unaffordable for most renters.
• Housing transitions are stalling: Canadians face increasing barriers to moving through the housing system, from renting an apartment, to moving into ownership and from a first-owned home to a family-sized unit.
• Equity gaps persist: Lower-income households, women, Indigenous people, racialized communities, and other equity-denied groups experience worse housing outcomes.
• Supply challenges are growing: Rising costs of materials, land, labour, and municipal fees, along with approval delays and labour shortages, are driving a cost-of-delivery crisis.
• Policy misalignment remains: Success is often measured by inputs and outputs - such as dollars spent and units built - rather than improvements in housing outcomes.

Grounded in the National Housing Strategy Act and the principles of the right to adequate housing, the report states that outcomes for people are what matter most when assessing if housing policies are working.

https://nhc-cnl.ca/news/post/is-canada-s-housing-policy-working-look-at-the-outcomes-for-people-says-new-report-from-the-national-housing-council-