Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to speak to the committee today to discuss home ownership in Canada.
As many of you may know, the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association represents the interests of the social, affordable, and non-profit housing sector in Canada.
When most of us think of home affordability and ownership we of course tend to think of the private market. Many of us have followed this traditional path towards home ownership, which includes entry into the rental market, saving for that first down payment, taking on a mortgage, refinancing, and, for the lucky of us, maybe paying off the mortgage. Although this path has been made more difficult with housing prices that have generally exceeded inflation over the past few years, we know that based on CMHC's fourth quarter 2016 report that MLS sales in 2016 will exceed 2015, demonstrating that this traditional path to home ownership remains viable.
However, I would ask the committee to consider the path to home ownership from different and non-traditional perspectives, where the social and non-profit housing sector and social enterprise would play a leading role.
As we all know, the traditional route to property is simply not a possible scenario for many Canadians. Even saving the down payment is out of reach for many low-income Canadians.
Within the social and non-profit housing sector there are models that seek to encourage and lead to home ownership. The Habitat for Humanity model is one example where sweat equity acts as a form of down payment. There are also innovative social housing models where the housing organization or provider provides financial literacy programs as well as matching incentives for families who save and build their assets in escrow. This pool of capital can then be used by households for such investments as a down payment.
There are also models such as the Attainable Homes Calgary Corp., which is a city-owned corporation that enables first-time buyers to buy with a down payment of as little as $2,000. This corporation works with builders, developers, lenders, and others, in order to bring down the upfront costs of ownership to deliver entry-level homes. As another example, there's the Trillium Housing social enterprise model, or the Options for Homes model, both in Toronto, which are non-profit housing organizations that employ a “pay it forward” model, where the non-profit provider co-invests with the homeowner by taking out a second mortgage on a property. Costs are kept down by partnerships with local suppliers, no payments on the second mortgage are required until the unit is sold or rented out, and the price appreciation covers the difference. In Toronto, the Options for Homes model has helped about 3,500 households enter the home ownership market when they otherwise wouldn't have been able to.
So what can the federal government do to encourage and promote some of these non-traditional routes or models of home ownership, and reduce inequity?
In general, we are saying that in the forthcoming national housing strategy, the federal government needs to focus on the needs of Canada's most vulnerable populations to better address gaps in terms of fairness. In our brief on the national housing strategy, we made 24 recommendations on how the federal government could do that. I would be happy to share a copy of that brief. However, for the purposes of the committee's mandate, as specific policy measures to strengthen the capacity of the social housing sector to encourage home ownership, we suggest the following three.
Very quickly, first, follow through on Prime Minister Trudeau's mandate letter directive to make surplus federal lands available for social and non-profit housing purposes. Enactment of such a policy would cover a significant capital expenditure for social housing providers. CHRA has recommended vastly expanding the already existing surplus federal real property for homelessness initiative to enact this policy.
Second, introduce a social housing sector transformation initiative that would provide social housing providers with relatively small amounts of capital to introduce innovative programs such as the Trillium Housing or Attainable Homes Calgary model. This is especially important in light of the end of operating agreements that thousands of social housing providers are already facing.
Lastly, in fact we saw this in your first round of questions, there is a need for better research and collection of domestic and international best practices on the interconnections within the housing spectrum. By researching and disseminating information on housing policies and models that work, we can facilitate the move to ownership. In our submission to the national housing strategy, CHRA has recommended the creation of what we call a housing research hub similar to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, that would, among other things, conduct and disseminate world-class research on housing policies.
The road to home ownership is traversed in a lot of different ways. If we want housing policy that meets the needs of all Canadians, not just those with the greatest incomes, we need to think holistically and creatively to ensure that ownership is a dream that all Canadians can access. The social and non-profit housing sector is here to help make that happen.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.