A plan needed to solve the housing crisis

 

This report is an echo of HRM councillor Waye Mason’s proposal.

Affordable housing action

 

We need provincial support so we can have more shelters, more supportive housing, and build more housing for people requiring below-market housing.

I have an opinion piece in the Herald today about the housing crisis: Market Alone Will Not Solve the Housing Crisishttps://t.co/n2ZOhVRlio#nspoli #halifax

— Waye Mason (@WayeMason) November 28, 2020

 

The 2015 Halifax Housing and Homelessness Partnership study showed 20 per cent of residents cannot afford market price rental housing. Halifax’s population has grown nine per cent over the last five years. The number of people who need below-market housing continues to grow with the population, and the number of affordable units has not grown with demand. The market will not solve this problem. Unlike many municipalities in much of the rest of the country, housing in Nova Scotia is delivered by the province. Many other provinces chose to fund municipalities to deliver housing, but that has not been the case in Nova Scotia since 1996. As a result, the Metro Regional Housing Authority is a provincial entity and new affordable units are almost exclusively built at the direction of the province while most federal money goes to the province, not to Halifax1

Discussion, political action, and cooperation is required now to implement an Affordable Housing Work Plan for our region.

1(2020, November 28). WAYE MASON: Market alone will not solve the housing crisis .... Retrieved November 28, 2020, from https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/local-perspectives/waye-mason-market-alone-will-not-solve-the-housing-crisis-524670/