They say the problem is that not enough homes are being built and corporations are buying some of the ones that are.
“That’s why we are fighting to address the issues that we’re seeing around the financialization of housing, to see a national acquisition fund and to see a moratorium on large corporations swooping in and buying those affordable homes,” said Lisa Marie Barron, MP for Nanaimo-Ladysmith.
“The largest real estate investment trusts over the last number of years benefitted $1.7 billion that they did not pay,” said Jenny Kwan, the NDP’s Housing Critic as she criticized how corporate taxes are set up.
Statement from NDP Housing Critic Jenny Kwan on Federal Housing Advocate's Report
After a recent damning report from the Parliamentary Budget Office critiquing the policy design of Build Canada Homes, the Federal Housing Advocate’s report today exposes major additional gaps in the Federal government’s housing policies, revealing that the government has allowed homelessness to escalate while relying on inadequate, short-term fixes. Across Waterloo, London, Hamilton, and Toronto, the Advocate heard consistently that people living in encampments face unsafe shelters, inaccessible housing, and constant threats of eviction. These conditions are the predictable outcome of inadequate policy development, underfunding, and enforcement-first approaches that criminalize survival.
The report’s recommendations make clear what needs to be done. Federal investments must be expanded and sustained with a human rights-based approach, including meaningful engagement with encampment residents, municipalities, and Indigenous organizations, and evaluation of programs like the UHEI to ensure lessons inform future strategies. Adequate pathways out of encampments require scaling up deeply affordable and supportive housing, integrating health care, and protecting people from forced evictions that exacerbate trauma and risk, especially during extreme weather.
The report also emphasizes the urgent need for culturally specific and trauma-informed Indigenous supports, gender-responsive housing, and protections for refugee claimants. Community organizations must be empowered and resourced rather than monitored and penalized. All federal housing initiatives, from Build Canada Homes to the National Housing Strategy, must embed a human rights framework, set clear outcomes, and provide sustainable funding to ensure real change along the continuum of housing, including setting clear targets of 40 percent of housing set to 30% of income.
Canadians are witnessing the consequences: lives put at risk, and systemic inequalities entrenched. The Prime Minister and Housing Minister cannot continue to defer responsibility. They must act immediately to align federal policy with human rights, expand investments, end criminalization, and commit to long-term, trauma-informed solutions that actually meet the needs of people experiencing homelessness. I call on the Prime Minister and Housing Minister to follow through immediately on the recommendations from these two reports.
