Housing: Who Is Responsible?

Any talk about affordable housing in Canada turns quickly into a discussion about incomes. The two issues are very much intertwined, given the high cost of housing and the paltry incomes of a quarter of all Canadian households. It was not always so.

In the 1960s, the federal government had agreements with many provincial governments (most notably Ontario) to fund the construction of rent-geared-to-income projects known as public housing. The model was Regent Park, started in the late 1940s by the City of Toronto. But the failed design of public housing—no through streets, no mixed uses, too much vacant open space—and its failure to mix incomes created enough concern that it was replaced with non-profit housing programs in the early 1970s.

From the mid 1970s to the mid 1990s, these programs provided a steady supply of new affordable housing in many Canadian cities, particularly in Ontario and Quebec. About one third of new units were on a...