Social housing - public, non-profit, or co-operative - was once a part of Canada's urban success story. After years of neglect and many calls for affordable homes and solutions to homelessness, housing is once again an important issue. In Still Renovating, Greg Suttor tells the story of the rise and fall of Canadian social housing policy. Focusing on the main turning points through the past seven decades, and the forces that shaped policy, this volume makes new use of archival sources and interviews, pays particular attention to institutional momentum, and describes key housing programs. The analysis looks at political change, social policy trends, housing market conditions, and game-changing decisions that altered the approaches of Canadian governments, their provincial partners, and the local agencies they supported. Reinterpreting accounts written in the social housing heyday, Suttor argues that the 1970s shift from low-income public housing to community-based non-profits and co-ops was not the most significant change, highlighting instead the tenfold expansion of activity in the 1960s and the collapse of social housing as a policy priority in the 1990s. As housing and neighbourhood issues continue to flare up in municipal, provincial, and national politics, Still Renovating is a valuable resource on Canada’s distinctive legacy in affordable housing.

The Residential Rehabilitation Assistance Program (RRAP) was announced by the Government of Canada in the spring of 1973 and became operational the following year. It came about because of the dual recognition that the existing housing stock represented an important national asset that needed to be preserved, and that a significant portion of this stock was substandard and occupied by households unable to afford necessary repairs. Over the following 26 years, more than 600 000 dwellings, mostly comprised of self-contained homeowner and rental units, but also a good number of beds in hostels, dormitories, special care facilities and rooming houses, were repaired with RRAP assistance across all regions and areas of the country. During this time, RRAP demonstrated great versatility in adapting to the priorities of the day in achieving a broad range of public objectives from improving the housing conditions of low-income Canadians, neighourhood improvement and employment generation, to meeting the special needs of persons with disabilities and the homeless. This history is divided into two main parts. The first recounts the evolution of RRAP from its inception to the present day. The second part explores the evolution of critical aspects of RRAP related to need, its design, management and accomplishments, and concludes with an epilogue which reviews reasons for RRAP's durability and explores the need for targeted housing rehabilitation programs in the future.

This book provides a comparative perspective on housing and planning policies affecting the future of cities, focusing on people- and place-based outcomes using the nexus of planning, design and policy. A rich mosaic of case studies features good practices of city-led strategies for affordable housing provision, as well as individual projects capitalising on partnerships to build mixed-income housing and revitalise neighbourhoods. Twenty chapters provide unique perspectives on diversity of approaches in eight countries and 12 cities in Europe, Canada and the USA. Combining academic rigour with knowledge from critical practice, the book uses robust empirical analysis and evidence-based case study research to illustrate the potential of affordable housing partnerships for mixed-income, socially inclusive neighbourhoods as a model to rebuild cities. Cities and Affordable Housing is an essential interdisciplinary collection on planning and design that will be of great interest to scholars, urban professionals, architects, planners and policy-makers interested in housing, urban planning and city building.

In the first comprehensive book on the topic since the 1970s, former Toronto mayor John Sewell considers housing issues in Canada. Writing in a style that is accessible and direct, Sewell considers public, private, and social housing. He looks at affordability and need, discusses definitions of good housing and good neighbourhoods, and examines the various approaches that governments have taken since World War II to increase the stock of reasonably priced housing. He shows why these approaches have consumed large amounts of public dollars yet have often failed. Indeed, homelessness is a larger problem in Canadian cities than ever before. In a time of shrinking public expenditures, he proposes the kinds of solutions necessary to ensure that all Canadians are well housed.. As chair of the Metro Toronto Housing Authority in the eighties and, more recently, as chair of the Commission on Planning and Development Reform in Ontario, Sewell has played a unique role in increasing public awareness of housing issues. His thought-provoking analysis will be of interest to all who believe that Canadians deserve affordable housing.

This report examines the experience of 11 countries (including Canada) from Europe, Scandinavia, North America and the Pacific Rim in supporting a private rental sector as part of their national housing system. The purpose was to examine the extent to which other governments have developed policies and programs specifically to encourage the production of rehabilitation of the private rental stock. The main body of the report reviews the objectives of the research, develops a framework for the comparative assessment and looks at the rental market in the selected countries. It then outlines policy issues specific to the private rental sector since 1980 and how each country has responded, summarizing the major policy and program initiatives, which have been identified for each country, and assessing the relevance of this experience for Canada. An appendix provides a detailed profile of each country. It presents the general background on the relative importance of the private rental stock in each country's housing system, the regulatory and tax regimes that affect private rental housing, and the current policy issues related to the private rental sector. Detailed assessments of specific major policies and programs in each country are also included. Key findings of the report include: 1. In almost all countries, except in instances of pressing urgency, governments have adopted a "laissea-faire" approach with regard to encouraging and facilitating private rental housing. 2. Across all countries, the fundamental cause of the low level of investment in private rental production and rehabilitation is the lack of a cmpetitive return relative to other forms of investment, especially in light of the risks inherent in rental investment. 3. The only countries that appear to have maintained a healthy investment for private rental housing without direct subsidies are New Zealand and Australia. Notably, neither have rent controls and permit depreciation and deductibility of rental losses against other sources of income. 4. Variants of virtually all the policy and program initiatives used in other countries have been attempted in Canada over the last three decades. 5. The most critical rental issue facing most governments is not simply the lack of private rental housing production, but the problem that many low-income households do not have sufficient incomes to access rental housing at a cost they can afford.