Some good ideas here, but I’d suggest three things.
First, we should reduce the social expectation that home ownership is required for a happy life, and stop conflating “home ownership” with having a home. There are many benefits to this logical paradigm shift.
Second, any initiative that makes ownership “more affordable” by helping people pay today’s high (or tomorrow’s higher) prices should be treated very carefully. That doesn’t let the market adjust naturally; it just adds another block to the stack holds and pushed prices up.
Third, we need to target the non-housing demand pressures, especially policies and incentives that make housing attractive as an investment for capital appreciation. That’s how we got here. That’s how the market for housing got separated from the need for housing: it was financialized. Buying a house can’t be a primary way to build a nest egg. That requires, as a base minimum mandatory requirement, that housing prices rise faster than inflation and, almost certainly, faster than incomes. It’s built in. This is the structural element we are not dealing with and that guarantees failure.
Many of today’s fixes for the “housing crisis” do not address the underlying issues, some of which have been building since the 1940s. And, it seems, many put a lot of faith in an structurally distorted market to sort things out with a bit of re-balancing.
This initiative’s myopic advocacy continues to detract from proven solutions to housing affordability at a critical moment in Canada’s history.
Canada’s total fertility rate is just 1.26. If we don’t raise that number within the next few years, Canadians will need to make a choice between record breaking immigration, year after year—or population decline that harms our economy, our productivity, and our ability to maintain a standing army. To avoid that choice, it’s imperative we raise our TFR before Millenials and Gen Z fully embrace childlessness, as Gen X and Millennials in Japan and South Korea have done in the recent past.
The missing middle solution won’t move the needle the TFR for many reasons, but most importantly because it is not the type of housing young people most desire. Single family homes are. Stop reinventing the wheel, and look back at our history.
In the 1940s we built single family homes for an inflation-adjusted price of $25K. How? We built them to a lower standard. 1 bathroom. Minimal electrical. No basement (most were built on cedar blocks). Minimal insulation. If there was an inspection, there was not a second one. They were built in 4 days per home. The new owners hand dug the basements and added foundations later. Most of these houses are still housing families in Montreal today, although heavily adapted by their owners over time to suit their needs and budgets. That’s a strength of SFHs.
Human beings in poverty have been building single family homes for themselves from stone, clay brick, and wood for hundreds of years on this continent that are still providing a place to raise families in. It’s not survivorship bias, look around Canada’s oldest cities.
Only in the past 80-some years have we slowly regulated and taxed our natural right and building legacy out of existence.
Now guess what? We have a shortage 80-some years in the making and nation-wide population aging.
Missing middle housing isn’t going to solve the population aging in rural Canada where the infrastructure for multifamily housing doesn’t exist.
The only strategy we need right now is a strategy to restore property rights so houses can be built affordably. Slash regulations and taxes, in favour of insurance requirements. Get rid of the efficiency standards. Incentives to improve insulation are already on the heating bill. Stop pretending that people will build knob and tube and use asbestos if we cut the building code—the incentives to use better technology are already plentiful.
Every regulation your org has advocated for acts as a tax on young home buyers. Every tax on young home buyers delays first home purchase and family formation. Is driving down Canada’s TFR really the legacy you want?
Canada’s priorities need to be:
1. Having a future generation.
2. Providing an improved standard of living for the next generation.
PUBLIC STATEMENT FROM FOUR PILLARS COMMUNITY HOUSING
Communities Build Homes. Government Can Clear the Way.
Four Pillars Community Housing applauds the Missing Middle Initiative's comprehensive analysis in their "Blueprint to Restore Homeownership for Young Canadians." The report correctly identifies the severity of our housing crisis and offers valuable policy recommendations. However, it reinforces a troubling pattern: looking to the same level of government that created this crisis to solve it.
After 39 years in real estate, we've watched federal policies—from immigration targets that outpaced housing supply to mortgage rules that favoured investors over families—unintentionally engineer the current affordability crisis. More government programs alone won't fix what government policies broke.
While the Blueprint proposes ten federal recommendations requiring years of implementation, communities can respond in months. We know our neighbourhoods, our needs, and our capacity. The evidence proves a different path is not only possible, but already succeeding. Across Canada and the world, empowered communities are delivering results where centralized programs have fallen short:
The Ottawa Community Land Trust achieved its $1.7 million fundraising goal through community bonds in 2023, preserving affordable rental housing without government grants. Germany's Mietshäuser Syndikat operates 191 self-organized housing projects using solidarity-based financing. Sweden's housing cooperatives house millions through member capital and market-rate loans, demonstrating decades of financial sustainability independent of state subsidies.
Across Canada, over 10,000 residential units now operate under community land stewardship—60% established since 2020—proving Canadians can create lasting housing solutions when empowered to act.
Four Pillars Community Housing advocates for a fundamental shift: unleashing Canadian ingenuity at the community level. From housing cooperatives to community land trusts, from innovative local financing to collective commissioning, Canadian communities possess the tools, knowledge, and determination to solve their own housing challenges.
The Pathway Forward
We don't oppose government involvement—we call for government enablement. We call on government to become an indispensable partner by removing regulatory barriers, streamlining approvals, and dedicating its resources to empowering community-led initiatives. Provide frameworks, not programs. Create space for innovation, not more bureaucracy.
Our blueprint for homeownership won't be written in committee rooms—it will be built in our neighbourhoods, one project at a time. Communities that build together, stay together, and create housing that serves families for generations, not election cycles.
Housing is a community issue that demands a community response.
Four Pillars is building a coalition of Canadian communities dedicated to proving a new model—one where the blueprint for homeownership is written in our neighbourhoods, not in committee rooms. We invite you to join us.
About Four Pillars Community Housing: Four Pillars empowers Canadian communities to build their own housing solutions. We provide the tools, frameworks, and advocacy needed to create lasting, affordable homes independent of top-down government programs.
Some good ideas here, but I’d suggest three things.
First, we should reduce the social expectation that home ownership is required for a happy life, and stop conflating “home ownership” with having a home. There are many benefits to this logical paradigm shift.
Second, any initiative that makes ownership “more affordable” by helping people pay today’s high (or tomorrow’s higher) prices should be treated very carefully. That doesn’t let the market adjust naturally; it just adds another block to the stack holds and pushed prices up.
Third, we need to target the non-housing demand pressures, especially policies and incentives that make housing attractive as an investment for capital appreciation. That’s how we got here. That’s how the market for housing got separated from the need for housing: it was financialized. Buying a house can’t be a primary way to build a nest egg. That requires, as a base minimum mandatory requirement, that housing prices rise faster than inflation and, almost certainly, faster than incomes. It’s built in. This is the structural element we are not dealing with and that guarantees failure.
Many of today’s fixes for the “housing crisis” do not address the underlying issues, some of which have been building since the 1940s. And, it seems, many put a lot of faith in an structurally distorted market to sort things out with a bit of re-balancing.
This initiative’s myopic advocacy continues to detract from proven solutions to housing affordability at a critical moment in Canada’s history.
Canada’s total fertility rate is just 1.26. If we don’t raise that number within the next few years, Canadians will need to make a choice between record breaking immigration, year after year—or population decline that harms our economy, our productivity, and our ability to maintain a standing army. To avoid that choice, it’s imperative we raise our TFR before Millenials and Gen Z fully embrace childlessness, as Gen X and Millennials in Japan and South Korea have done in the recent past.
The missing middle solution won’t move the needle the TFR for many reasons, but most importantly because it is not the type of housing young people most desire. Single family homes are. Stop reinventing the wheel, and look back at our history.
In the 1940s we built single family homes for an inflation-adjusted price of $25K. How? We built them to a lower standard. 1 bathroom. Minimal electrical. No basement (most were built on cedar blocks). Minimal insulation. If there was an inspection, there was not a second one. They were built in 4 days per home. The new owners hand dug the basements and added foundations later. Most of these houses are still housing families in Montreal today, although heavily adapted by their owners over time to suit their needs and budgets. That’s a strength of SFHs.
Human beings in poverty have been building single family homes for themselves from stone, clay brick, and wood for hundreds of years on this continent that are still providing a place to raise families in. It’s not survivorship bias, look around Canada’s oldest cities.
Only in the past 80-some years have we slowly regulated and taxed our natural right and building legacy out of existence.
Now guess what? We have a shortage 80-some years in the making and nation-wide population aging.
Missing middle housing isn’t going to solve the population aging in rural Canada where the infrastructure for multifamily housing doesn’t exist.
The only strategy we need right now is a strategy to restore property rights so houses can be built affordably. Slash regulations and taxes, in favour of insurance requirements. Get rid of the efficiency standards. Incentives to improve insulation are already on the heating bill. Stop pretending that people will build knob and tube and use asbestos if we cut the building code—the incentives to use better technology are already plentiful.
Every regulation your org has advocated for acts as a tax on young home buyers. Every tax on young home buyers delays first home purchase and family formation. Is driving down Canada’s TFR really the legacy you want?
Canada’s priorities need to be:
1. Having a future generation.
2. Providing an improved standard of living for the next generation.
Your priorities are backwards.
PUBLIC STATEMENT FROM FOUR PILLARS COMMUNITY HOUSING
Communities Build Homes. Government Can Clear the Way.
Four Pillars Community Housing applauds the Missing Middle Initiative's comprehensive analysis in their "Blueprint to Restore Homeownership for Young Canadians." The report correctly identifies the severity of our housing crisis and offers valuable policy recommendations. However, it reinforces a troubling pattern: looking to the same level of government that created this crisis to solve it.
After 39 years in real estate, we've watched federal policies—from immigration targets that outpaced housing supply to mortgage rules that favoured investors over families—unintentionally engineer the current affordability crisis. More government programs alone won't fix what government policies broke.
While the Blueprint proposes ten federal recommendations requiring years of implementation, communities can respond in months. We know our neighbourhoods, our needs, and our capacity. The evidence proves a different path is not only possible, but already succeeding. Across Canada and the world, empowered communities are delivering results where centralized programs have fallen short:
The Ottawa Community Land Trust achieved its $1.7 million fundraising goal through community bonds in 2023, preserving affordable rental housing without government grants. Germany's Mietshäuser Syndikat operates 191 self-organized housing projects using solidarity-based financing. Sweden's housing cooperatives house millions through member capital and market-rate loans, demonstrating decades of financial sustainability independent of state subsidies.
Across Canada, over 10,000 residential units now operate under community land stewardship—60% established since 2020—proving Canadians can create lasting housing solutions when empowered to act.
Four Pillars Community Housing advocates for a fundamental shift: unleashing Canadian ingenuity at the community level. From housing cooperatives to community land trusts, from innovative local financing to collective commissioning, Canadian communities possess the tools, knowledge, and determination to solve their own housing challenges.
The Pathway Forward
We don't oppose government involvement—we call for government enablement. We call on government to become an indispensable partner by removing regulatory barriers, streamlining approvals, and dedicating its resources to empowering community-led initiatives. Provide frameworks, not programs. Create space for innovation, not more bureaucracy.
Our blueprint for homeownership won't be written in committee rooms—it will be built in our neighbourhoods, one project at a time. Communities that build together, stay together, and create housing that serves families for generations, not election cycles.
Housing is a community issue that demands a community response.
Four Pillars is building a coalition of Canadian communities dedicated to proving a new model—one where the blueprint for homeownership is written in our neighbourhoods, not in committee rooms. We invite you to join us.
About Four Pillars Community Housing: Four Pillars empowers Canadian communities to build their own housing solutions. We provide the tools, frameworks, and advocacy needed to create lasting, affordable homes independent of top-down government programs.