Housing Policy

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.

Housing is increasingly unattainable in successful global cities, and Toronto is no exception -- in part because of zoning that protects “stable” residential neighborhoods with high property values. House Divided is a citizen’s guide for changing the way housing can work in big cities. Using Toronto as a case study, this anthology unpacks the affordability crisis and offers innovative ideas for creating housing for all ages and demographic groups. With charts, maps, data, and policy prescriptions, House Divided poses tough questions about the issue that will make or break the global city of the future.

Breaking the country-specific boundaries of traditional housing policy books, Remaking Housing Policy is the first introductory housing policy textbook designed to be used by students all around the world. Starting from first principles, readers are guided through the objectives behind government housing policy interventions, the tools and mechanisms deployed and the outcomes of the policy decisions. A range of international case studies from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas illustrate the book’s general principles and demonstrate how different regimes influence policy. The rise of the neo-classical discourse of market primacy in housing has left many countries with an inappropriate mix of state and market processes with major interventions that do not achieve what they were intended to do. Remaking Housing Policy goes back to basics to show what works and what doesn’t and how policy can be improved for the future. Remaking Housing Policy provides readers with a comprehensive introduction to the objectives and mechanisms of social housing. This innovative international textbook will be suitable for academics, housing students and those on related courses across geography, planning, property and urban studies.

This book investigates how housing policy changes in Asia since the late 1990s have impacted on housing affordability, security, livability, culture and social development. Using case study examples from countries/cities including China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, the contributors contextualize housing policy development in terms of both global and local socio-economic and political changes. They then investigate how policy changes have shaped and re-shaped the housing wellbeing of the local people and the social development within these places, which they argue should constitute the core purpose of housing policy. This book will open up a new dimension for understanding housing and social development in Asia and a new conceptual perspective with which to examine housing which, by nature, is culture-sensitive and people-oriented. It will be of interest to students, scholars and professionals in the areas of housing studies, urban and social development and the public and social policy of Asia.

The 2017 Home Capital saga represents the shortcomings of a financial system challenged by distinct, siloed regulatory frameworks that fail to communicate with each other. Home Capital is a publicly traded company that acts as a lender through the Home Trust Company, most often providing mortgages to clients rejected by traditional banks. Home Capital’s 2017 announcement that it required $2 billion to sustain a $600-million loss shook customer confidence, and fueled by allegations of corruption, the company suffered a rapid decline in stock price. The Home Capital crisis is the most recent pre-pandemic example of systemic risk in the financial sector in Canada and highlights the invaluable opportunity we have to avoid repeating past mistakes in the nearing post-pandemic economic reality. Using the 2017 Home Capital saga as a starting point, Dangerous Opportunities sheds light on the compartmentalization of regulators and its greater ramifications on board independence and corporate governance, taxation in the competitive housing sector, and the success of non-bank financial institutions in various jurisdictions. A hybrid of law and business, Dangerous Opportunities is a must-read for those interested in the underbelly of financial institutions and is an inspired read in the aftermath of the recent housing crisis, which saw many aspiring homeowners seek dangerous opportunities outside of the traditional banking system.

The most widely used and most widely referenced "basic book" on Housing Policy in the United States has now been substantially revised to examine the turmoil resulting from the collapse of the housing market in 2007 and the related financial crisis. The text covers the impact of the crisis in depth, including policy changes put in place and proposed by the Obama administration. This new edition also includes the latest data on housing trends and program budgets, and an expanded discussion of homelessnessof homelessness.

This text introduces the reader to the comparative study of housing policy. It looks first at the benefits, limitations and difficulties of the comparative method, as well as the reasons behind governmental involvement in housing and particular policy choices. It then identifies and discusses key themes of value to the analysis of a range of countries in the advanced capitalist world, offering an understanding of national differences and similarities and drawing on examples from, for instance, Europe, the USA, Australia and Japan.