Housing Affordability | Why Should We Care?
Why Housing?
The issue of housing is one that is not only felt at an individual level but on a global front. The alert continues to be sent out to the many organizations, both public and private, that have influence or bare impact from the dire need. Negative implications to society are broad including health and wellbeing, environmental, and economic. This wide span of influences and impacts opens the door to a deep pool of potential partnerships to activate solutions.
Health & Wellbeing
It has been agreed globally that access to stable housing is fundamental to living a decent life, that it is a basic human need and central to wellbeing. It is a human right and essential to sustainable community development, human development, and social cohesion.
The audiences in need of housing are broad, including the aging over housed and isolated, multigenerational families, young professionals, newcomers, and many front line service workers; their housing needs are diverse but options must be available and attainable. Each of these groups develop unique social struggles as a result of housing instability but often include elevated stress, depression, social exclusion, illness, and disease.
Housing disadvantage can actually be used as a predictor of poor health outcomes.
The lack of appropriate housing disproportionately impacts low to moderate income earners that are required to spend a larger percentage of their income on shelter which often leads to living in poor quality or overcrowded dwellings, and negative consequences due to the forced reduction of available resources for food, education, health and recreation.
Environment
Environmental consequences and carbon cost from the expansive scale of our large lot single family residential trends include increased direct and indirect emissions, natural resource usage, reduction in greenspace, and environmental impacts as a result of increased fuel and commuting requirements. All posing a challenge to our goal of becoming a lower carbon economy.
Economy
Housing affordability challenges are now encroaching on higher income brackets. Although no longer
targeted solely at the impoverished, from a socio economic perspective housing is still heavily referenced as a primary tool to reducing poverty, being listing as one of the top game changers.
A poorly functioning housing market, with a lack of appropriate available housing also leads to reduced opportunity for mobility, which impacts growth potential and creates significant challenge to meeting workforce needs. And renters are stuck, with lack of availability and vacancy decontrol they cannot move to a closer or more suitable space as current market rates await them. The lack of availability has also created a highly competitive market both financially and in broadening the landlord’s choice of tenants.
With one of the lowest jobless rates in Ontario, the Four County Labour Market Planning Board (Bruce, Grey, Huron and Perth counties) has suggested that housing has risen to the top as the number one workforce challenge for the region”. These unmet needs impact many layers of our economy.
As a sector, the housing industry is also a substantial contributor to the economy both from a GDP scale as well as personal investment, so the challenges of affordability struggle to find priority in a market driven economy.