Housing In Postwar Canada

The size of Canadian households has been declining since at least the 1880s. Miron compares this trend to patterns of household size in England and the United States and argues that postwar changes in household formation in Canada were the result of several forces including the postwar baby boom, increased longevity, changes in marriage pattern, rising incidence of divorce, increased household affluence, and new forms of government assistance to housing. While aggregate growth in population, families, and households helps to explain why more housing was necessary, it does not explain changes in the kind of houses desired. Miron discusses changes in available housing stock as well as changes in structural type such as the great apartment boom of the late 1960s and the re-emergence of owner occupancy in the late 1970s. The types of data available for measuring change in the stock and sources of error in housing data are also analyzed. One of the books most important contributions is an annotated synthesis of national trends in household formation and housing demand, derived from Statistics Canada census data, and accompanied by an insightful analysis of the relation of these trends to housing stock evolution. This is the only available detailed study of these topics in the Canadian context.

Between 1945 and 1981 the Canadian population doubled, while the number of dwellings more than tripled. John Miron shows how changes in demographic structure and housing affordability affected postwar household formation and housing demand. He argues that no single explanation adequately reflects the extent of the impact of the demographic trends and the economic changes.

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.

This study describes the organization and operation of the postwar Canadian housing and residential mortgage markets and investigates the role of and scope for government policy in these markets. There are three main sections. The first investigates the behavious of the housing market and structural relationships within it, and quatifies these relationships through the development of an econometric model. The single and multiple dwelling sectors are analysed separately, and considerable attention is paid to the factors affecting both housing demand and supply. The housing model is then used to explain the long-run and cyclical variations in residential construction activity on a period-by-period basis. The residential mortgage market is examined in the second section. The main participants are described and their mortgage investment behavious is analysed in terms of both their portfolio investment decisions and their net inflows of funds. The factors influencing the supply of mortgage credit are integrated with demand factors to explain the determination of mortgage rates, and simulations are conducted to indicate the interest sensitivity of mortgage flows for the major lending institutions. The third section forcuses upon government oplicy in the housing and mortgage markets using the models previously developed. The major government programs are analysed, and simulation experiments run to quantify their effects. The book concludes with a discussion of the trade-off between policies directed towards housing objectives and those directed toward general economic stability. This work should be helpful to students of Canadian housing and mortgage markets and to economists who are interested in more than cursory knowledge of the area. Policy-makers should also find it useful because it provides an in-depth analysis of past housing and mortgage market policy, and describes the framework and market structure within which future policies will operate.

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 contributors identify important considerations for evaluating the current and future housing situation, clarify housing research issues and priorities, and indicate emergent policy issues. The essays are divided into six sections: economic, demographic, and institutional factors underlying the postwar demand for housing; principal aspects of the supply side of housing, including housing finance, technology, and regulation; housing-stock growth and changes in housing quality; the balance of supply and demand in terms of adequacy, suitability, and affordability; the changing settlement environment; and lessons, challenges, and issues for the future. The book also contains valuable summaries of housing policy initiatives undertaken between 1945 and 1986. An essential reference document on urban housing and city development in the postwar period in Canada, House, Home, and Community will be valuable to academics, planners, professionals, and students with interests related to housing.