A media outlet reported this week that the Liberal's housing strategy isn’t delivering the affordable homes people need despite the worsening housing crisis across the country.
Families aren’t finding homes they can afford in the communities where they live and work because rich investors are hiking up rent to maximize their profits. Nearly all the government's funding allocation under the Rental Construction Financing Initiative (RCFI) ends up in the pockets of for-profit developers who often have little interest in offering homes people can afford.
This Liberal government has been telling people that they are building more affordable homes, but the reality doesn't match the rhetoric. What the government deems affordable is way over the market price — families just can’t afford it. Currently, for many of the units created under the RCFI initiative, the rent is somewhere between 30 per cent and 120 per cent above market rent. It's laughable for the Liberals to claim that this is affordable. The NDP has been calling this out for years now and the program needs to change.
City TV: Concerns raised about rising cost of rentals for low-income earners: Vancouver MP
A Vancouver NDP MP is sounding the alarm when it comes to rent-geared-to-income housing units, saying incoming changes by the federal government will lead to a severe shortage within the affordable housing market in this country.
Vancouver East MP Jenny Kwan says she’s learned that as of March 31, 2028, Ottawa will be cutting subsidy funding to non-profits that operate buildings that include units for those on a fixed income. Once those suites are vacated, she says the price of those units will be bumped to market rates.
For example, a rental suite that’s going for $650 right now could be increased to $1,800 or more.
Kwan adds these changes are happening right now at some buildings in Metro Vancouver as non-profits try to bank money to prepare for their funding to be slashed in the future.
