Image by RDNE Stock project via Pexels

In 2021, the Kensington Market Community Land Trust (KMCLT) did an astonishing thing. After a protracted renoviction battle over the Toronto neighbourhood’s iconic Mona Lisa building, the KMCLT bought it from the would-be evictors. The rumoured plan to turn it into a cannabis hotel was foiled and the tenants of the 12 residential and five commercial units—including our beloved corner store, barbershop, and hat store—got to stay.

As KMCLT’s co-chair, I helped organize the community around the tenants, and it was satisfying to see the building go into communal hands. For months I’d walk past Kensington Avenue’s vintage shops and fruit stand with a feeling of elation. We bought the building!

KMCLT’s bold move is part of a burgeoning movement of community land trusts (CLTs) across Canada. CLTs are community-led organizations who remove land from the speculative real estate market and keep it affordable forever. They revive the idea of the commons and collective stewardship, and help governments fulfill their responsibility to house their citizens. They’re quickly emerging as one of the only reliable workarounds for people to find affordable housing—and to keep their neighbourhoods alive.

Like most CLT purchases, KMCLT, which is made up of tenants, neighbourhood residents, and other supporters, bought our building with a mix of government funding and a regular mortgage. The mortgage is taken out by the land trust, which uses the rents to pay it off. It’s the government funding that allows us to keep those rents affordable. As we pay off the mortgage, rents can even go down.

Despite attempts at a second acquisition, KMCLT still owns only one building. But the plan is to use equity to purchase other buildings, as fast as we can. The urgency reflects the housing emergency in Canada: for every new unit of affordable housing built, we lose 11. Those lost affordable homes put people on the street.

Still, from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside Community Land Trust (DTES CLT), co-led by Indigenous and Japanese Canadian organizations, to Black-led CLTs in Nova Scotia, people are coming together to find solutions to the housing crisis. They are now bolstered by the Canadian Network of Community Land Trusts, established in 2017. The group has over 40 member CLTs and four staff to support CLT development across Canada. “Urban, suburban, and rural communities reach out to the network regularly for guidance on developing a land trust,” director Nat Pace says.

The first meeting of Canadian CLTs on Canadian soil took place in Montreal in 2018, at a conference organized by the Milton Parc Citizens’ Committee. We toured Milton Parc and heard about the decades-long battle between the community and developers that led to the entire neighbourhood being cooperatively owned under the umbrella of a CLT. The key moment of that conference, however, was when we were challenged by an Indigenous activist to put land back at the core of the movement.

Collective stewardship requires releasing the death-grip private property has on our imaginations. Thinking about land, settlers must necessarily grapple with the fact that it’s stolen. If at that meeting in Montreal we were mainly white settlers talking about CLTs, that is no longer the case. In Northeastern Ontario, the Temiskaming District Community Land Trust is creating an Indigenous women-led CLT to provide Indigenous-designed affordable housing, while in Toronto and B.C., Indigenous land trusts are also taking shape.

The modern CLT movement began with New Communities Inc., an agricultural community formed in Albany, Georgia in 1969 by civil rights activists who believed that secure land tenure was key to Black liberation. Tapping into this idea, African Nova Scotian CLTs, such as Upper Hammonds Plains just outside Halifax and Down the Marsh in Truro, have formed to secure historic land claims. In Vancouver, Hogan’s Alley land trust honours the legacy of Strathcona’s Black community, displaced through racist city planning.

CLTs can encompass so many forms of land use. Cultural land trusts in Toronto and Vancouver have formed to preserve space for artists; The Northern Community Land Trust is creating affordable home ownership in Whitehorse; and, also in Toronto, the Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust (PNLT)—the first of the resurgence of CLTs in Canada, having started in 2012—is saving rooming houses from renoviction. PNLT’s first acquisition in 2017 was the Milky Way Garden, which is stewarded by Tibetan refugees.

I’m inspired by the opportunity to rethink not only our relationship to land, but also the extractive capitalism that mines bonds between people. There’s a deep camaraderie between Canadian CLTs, which come out of neighbourhood battles against gentrification, displacement, and erasure of working-class immigrant communities. We learn about community—both its challenges and opportunities—and in turn we create a community for ourselves.

Governments are starting to listen: the recent federal announcement of a $1.5 billion Rental Protection Fund, designed for the acquisition of at-risk residential buildings, is a recognition that we can’t build our way out of the housing crisis, and that non-market housing is essential to keep housing affordable.

It remains to be seen how the Canadian movement will sustain itself over the long term. For now, CLTs offer communities a rare source of optimism in the ever-deepening housing crisis. It’s exciting to be part of it, and to know that anyone who wants to effect change in our relationship to land and community can be part of it, too.

Photo by Hayden Petrie

“This is not a scam,” I read the email aloud to my partner. “We are seniors looking to move to Nova Scotia and have a 2-bedroom plus den.”

The sender had reached out after reading an opinion piece I wrote for Family Day, responding to headlines about Canada’s declining birth rate. In the article, I shared our situation: we’re a couple in our mid-thirties postponing having children because… money, with housing costs—particularly rent—being the main concern. We currently live in a one-bedroom apartment and are searching for an affordable two-bedroom, admittedly an oxymoron in Toronto.

The couple who emailed lived in Oakville and offered a lease takeover, one of the few remaining ways to find relatively affordable rent, in early 2024. Their place was perfect on paper: 1,200 square feet with a dishwasher, parking space, and storage unit for $2,400 per month. However, it was on the side of a highway, with a 30-minute walk to the GO train for an hour’s commute into the city.

I was relieved when they emailed a few weeks later to say their daughter was moving in. Even though we won’t find anything like it in Toronto for the price, for us, the savings weren’t worth a two-to-three hour commute or being disconnected from our friends, community, and a walkable neighbourhood.

My partner and I don’t belong to the work-from-home pyjama class; we’re part of what political economist Ricardo Tranjan calls the “tenant class,” also the title of his 2023 book. Tranjan aims to re-politicize housing in Canada, questioning whether it should serve profit and wealth or provide homes for people. His thesis is clear: we can’t have it both ways.

Tranjan likens the power dynamics between landlords and tenants to those between bosses and workers. Just as workers must sell their labour to survive, tenants must pay whatever rent a landlord demands to secure a place to live. Landlords, who can evict tenants and raise prices, wield a similar power to bosses.

The financialization of housing is a key driver of rising rents in Canada. In 2020, more than one in five houses in B.C., Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia were used as investment properties. Ontario is at the forefront of this trend, with investors owning 56.7 percent of newly constructed condos in Toronto and nearly 40 percent of all properties built after 2016.

Tranjan’s most radical argument is that, despite popular discourse, there is no housing crisis. He rejects the term because it suggests the system once worked but is now failing everyone. “We have a housing system that is structured around profit creation and wealth accumulation,” Tranjan tells This Magazine, “and it’s working really well for people who are very influential and really close to power, to make sure nothing that we do changes that.” Simply put, real estate in Canada is treated as an asset to make money, and not for housing actual people, which can lead to higher rates of evictions, unreasonable rent hikes, poor building maintenance and other problems.

Although Canada officially recognizes housing as a human right—we even signed a fancy United Nations paper saying so—housing is increasingly becoming a privilege, and it seems tenants are the only ones working to correct that in a meaningful way.

*

In April, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, where Tranjan is a senior researcher, released a report calling for rent control across Canada, using Ontario as a case study. The report shows that rents in Ontario are increasing at a rate three times higher than the province’s 2.5 percent cap. Landlords exploit loopholes like Above Guideline Increases (AGIs) to raise rents beyond standard limits, passing the costs of property improvements onto tenants. New units are exempt from rent control, as are vacant units, which had an average rent increase of 36 percent in 2023.

This isn’t just an Ontario story. From 2022 to 2023, rents across Canada surged by 22 percent, resulting in the lowest national vacancy rate since 1988. Only five provinces and one territory have rent controls on occupied units, and just two have controls on vacant units. Alberta, where there is no rent control, has seen the fastest-growing rents. PEI is the exception, having imposed a temporary rent freeze last year.

In May, I wrote another opinion piece about renting, responding to the federal budget’s purported focus on supporting Canadians, especially younger generations facing unattainable homeownership. The budget allocates $15 billion to the Apartment Construction Loan Program, an initiative that has mostly produced above-market rentals for seven years. Instead of addressing rising rents, the government proposed a renters’ Bill of Rights that would allow tenants to see a unit’s previous price and have rent payments count toward credit scores. While seemingly progressive, advocates argue it would penalize low-income renters struggling with rising costs. As a renter who’s never missed a payment, the proposal feels like a hollow gesture—good credit won’t help me pay for a mortgage I can’t afford. Meanwhile, measures like increasing borrowing limits from RRSPs and extending first-time mortgage amortization periods favour lenders and developers, cost individuals more, and conveniently leave a crucial question unanswered: How can we save for a down payment when our rents are skyrocketing?

This time I received an email from a landlord: “Please do your research better before misleading readers. Your actions and wishes [for rent control] will only force small landlords to sell their rental properties, decreasing the number of rental units.” My knee-jerk reaction was to thank this reader for affirming my opinion: meaningful protections for renters could free up supply by disincentivizing multiple property ownership. Despite our antithetical positions, this interaction reflects a broader conflict: the false equivalency between tenants’ and landlords’ financial security.

For landlords, a house is an investment; for tenants, it’s shelter. Comparing renters’ basic needs to landlords’ financial interests is misleading. Why does this landlord feel deserving of high returns but immune to market risks and regulation? Rent control is essential to keep the housing market fair and accessible. This emailer might argue that rent control disrupts the free market, but the current system forces even high earners to compete with middle and low-income renters, driving inflation and interest rate hikes that hurt everyone. It’s also reducing access to affordable housing, and leaving little social housing for the unhoused. Large and small-scale investment strategies fuel this cycle, worsening unaffordability, rental scarcity, and growing homelessness.

With 66.5 percent of Canadians owning homes and 40 percent of federal MPs invested in real estate, the landowning and landlord class wields formidable economic and political power, holding 90 percent of the country’s wealth. By failing to intervene in this so-called crisis, governments have left renters to fend for themselves.

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In some places, tenants are succeeding in taking matters into their own hands. Ontario’s first anti-renoviction law came into effect in Hamilton over the summer. If a landlord wants to renovict, they have to apply for a construction licence within seven days, a contractor needs to sign off saying the renos require tenants to move, and then, once changes are made, landlords have to let the same tenants move back in, and at no added rental cost. They may also have to help them find somewhere else to live while the reno happens.

Hamilton’s new renter protections were partially due to work by ACORN, the nationwide tenant advocacy group, and inspired by a similar policy established in Burnaby, B.C., which has gained recognition as one of the strongest tenant protections in Canada. This success in Burnaby, also championed by ACORN, includes vital components such as financial support during temporary relocations, compensation for moving costs, and protections against unjust evictions. These victories show that tenant organizing has the power to push political leaders to protect affordable housing.

Tenant organizing is building momentum across Canada. Rent strikes in Toronto have challenged some of the largest corporate landlords, while the Vancouver Tenants Union has protected renters from unfair eviction. In Quebec, one of the largest and longest-operating tenant associations is fighting for robust rent control and a ban on Airbnb. In Ottawa, tenants in the Herongate neighbourhood have filed a human rights case against “demovictions.” ACORN has secured hundreds of millions in repairs, prevented displacement, and achieved protections like landlord licensing and stricter rent controls.

People are also adapting to rising rents by seeking shared accommodations and connecting online to find housemates. The Instagram account @coolpeoplehouses lets users share sublets, rooms for rent, and lease transfers, and helps people bypass the hell that is navigating ever-tightening listings by passing along below-market rents. The page resembles a patchwork of ISO (in search of ) posts—a collage of kitchens, bedrooms, and living rooms from across the GTA. While a room can still occasionally be found for under $1,000, the average price for September listings was just below $1,200.

The Instagram account works in tandem with the app Housemate Space to help people find compatible roommates, similar to online dating. The founder, who prefers to remain anonymous, launched the app in 2020 after a co-living relationship turned sour. “I wanted to create a solution that made it easier. I saw an opportunity to create a community-based platform where people could connect and find compatible housemates, not just housing,” they explain.

In 2023, Rentals.ca reported a 27 percent rise in shared listings, with a 78 percent spike in Ontario alone. Housemate Space allows users to create profiles, which are then matched with potential housemates based on compatibility factors, while @coolpeoplehouses serves as a marketing page for sharing listings. The founder spends about 20 (unpaid) hours per week managing both platforms and believes it’s worth the effort. “People are looking to save on rent while also seeking more meaningful connections with their housemates,” they say. Feedback from users has shaped the platform’s evolution: “Initially, we focused on helping individuals find places, but as we listened to the community, it became clear there’s a bigger need in the multi-tenant housing sector.”

Interest in shared living extends beyond grassroots efforts. On a larger scale, organizations like Youthful Cities, a think tank, envisions co-living as an alternative for young renters. Their Toboggan Flats project aims to convert vacant office spaces into affordable communal apartments for young professionals in Canada, inspired by successful European co-living models. With office vacancy rates rising in cities— Toronto’s reached 18 percent this year, the highest since the 1990s—they aim to create as many units as possible across the country and are currently scouting for buildings in major cities like Calgary and Ottawa. Once secured, the first co-living space is expected to be ready within 10 to 14 months, much faster than usual office-to-residential conversions, as they can retain the existing mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems, thanks to shared kitchens and bathrooms.

People are also, of course, connecting through groups like Montreal’s Chez Queer on Facebook, as they have been for years, to find the right housemates. And, anecdotally, in Toronto at least, more people seem to be hiring real estate agents to find them a place that may not be easily found otherwise. In these cases, the onus to pay the agent is on the landlord, not the prospective tenant.

While these strategies offer creative ways to navigate the housing market, they individualize the problem, leaving renters to find personal fixes without addressing the systemic forces driving up prices. My partner and I don’t want to live with roommates as we raise a child, and even for young professionals who might benefit from co-living initiatives, what awaits them when they outgrow shared living arrangements if housing costs keep rising as they have for decades?

What’s needed is collective action. In his book, Tranjan mentions how the labour movement historically offered essential support and solidarity for tenant organizing, but that this has diminished over time. He noted in an interview that in Latin America, in Portuguese, Spanish, and French, the term “housing movement” is as familiar as the labour movement. Barcelona plans to ban short-term tourist rentals by 2028, and France and Spain have implemented rent caps. These examples show that change hasn’t resulted from benevolent governments acting out of goodwill, but from being pushed by organized political pressure.

Rising rents are often attributed to market forces and low supply, overlooking how landlords profit from the housing shortage. The notion that we can build our way out of the housing crisis is repeated endlessly—and likely will continue to be—but it only preserves the status quo for property owners. Simply adding more housing won’t fix an unfair system. Without widespread, organized challenging of harmful policies and financial incentives that favour developers, the divide between renters and owners will keep growing, no matter how much new housing is built.

*

Last summer, my partner and I went to view a two-bedroom in our neighbourhood, where we hope to stay, close to our work, friends, and daily routines. The middle-aged couple who owned it seemed like “good landlords.” The unit was listed just under $3,000, slightly below the average for a two-bedroom. The previous tenants had just bought their first home (perhaps helped by paying lower rent). The other two units in the house had been occupied for over 10 years. They told us they’d received 4,000 inquiries, and we joined a line that stretched down the block.

While we waited, I thought about those two emails: a landlord’s entitlement to profit at our expense and fellow tenants offering solidarity. Their need to clarify “This is not a scam” reflects the inherent exploitation of our current system. As the line grew behind us with other couples our age looking for a two-bedroom—for more space, an office, or, like us, a room for a child—I turned to my partner and said, “This is a scam.”

I am a professional writer and spoken word artist. I’ve been sharing my work—and making space for other artists to create and share their work—in Toronto for nearly 20 years. I am of East African descent, with a heritage and history rooted in oral traditions. Toronto is where I was born, and it’s where I call home.

While I’ve written five poetry books, my greatest “publication” to date would have to be my poem, “Song of Sheba,” which was featured on Toronto Transit Commission vehicles alongside such poets as Toronto’s Poet Laureate, legend Lillian Allen. I am who I am because of Black creators who built pathways for the discovery and claiming of my voice. I asked Lillian earlier this year: What am I living for, but to see artists thrive in our city, be given the space to continue our demanding and necessary work? A poem is a verdict, a political act.

On the subway, I see my poem next to a life insurance ad. But no one is reading. I get it; we are all busy, bombarded with information overload. And poems are difficult to read, even when they’re short. “Song of Sheba” is about war and violence in the East African context. A hard-to-absorb poem, perhaps, when life is already hard, maybe even terrifying, and frankly you just need to get from point A to point B because you’re tired.

Meanwhile, artists like myself are being pushed to the margins, and don’t know where to go: how to get from A to B. Whether to flee the city or stay and fight. For Black artists specifically, the challenges of a fluctuating income and an always-worsening housing crisis are compounded by pervasive anti-Black racism, which makes it a struggle to find a place to call home both literally and in the art world. The city needs a strategy to ensure we can access housing—and keep making art.

I don’t see myself being able to live in Toronto securely or long term. Budgeting doesn’t help when nothing is affordable. I entertain the idea of living elsewhere every single day. Of saving money for travel. I fear where Toronto is going and that I will have to go, too, leaving the bulk of my kin behind. The crux is that staying and leaving both feel risky—and somewhat punishing.

Earlier this year, I applied to a housing initiative (a joint effort of Blackhurst Cultural Centre and Westbank Corporation) with 12 units reserved for artists of African and/ or Caribbean descent in Toronto. I felt I had another chance at making a life here. A few mentors read my application, complimenting me on my accolades. I felt the heavy cloud of the contradictory phrase Toronto housing lift.

My application didn’t even make it to the interview stage. Perhaps to be expected; there is so much Black talent in the city and not enough space. The question is, who gets to decide on the contours of that space? Who gets to choose the Black artists worthy of subsidized housing—and what would it mean to “strengthen” my application, should a similar opportunity later arise? I am hoping it does: a dozen housing units for Black artists in a city of three million is direly inadequate.

The lack of artist housing in Toronto is, of course, part of the larger housing crisis—the city ranked 11th on a recent global housing unaffordability list. I know several people, from artists to teachers to doctors, leaving the city for sanity’s sake. Some have been renovicted and left with no other choice.

More Torontonians need to admit that our rental rates amount to robbery. Prices are oppressive and the poor are being removed from belonging right before our eyes. Meanwhile, the city is full of empty condos—an injustice the mayor should be ashamed of.

In the U.S., Elaine Brown, former chair of the Black Panther Party and the only woman to hold that position, is one beacon of light. At age 81, she is on a mission to create affordable housing in West Oakland, California for low-income Black folks. Her 79-unit housing project is called The Black Panther. Her reason for building, she told The Guardian, is simple: “I want us, Black people, to have economic power.”

We need to demand that politicians move tangible resources into Black communities in a public and transparent way. Toronto could learn from Oakland, and the revolutionary tenets of the Panthers, which included affordable housing and breakfast programs for underserved kids. In other words, looking at the roots of the problem, and considering possible solutions rooted in the politics of who has a right to a roof. 

While artist grants, including some for Black artists, do exist in Canada, we can’t rely on them to make ends meet in a city like Toronto—let alone coordinate the time, space, and energy to make things of lasting artistic and cultural value. Grants should account for the reality of inflation, the fact that most artists can work and gig incessantly and still not have enough for a rainy day, let alone retirement. Grants should counteract the need to turn to other work to earn a living. But without family support, this is wishful thinking.

And without access to safe and affordable housing, creating is impossible. For this reason, we’ll likely see artists leaving the city in droves. A 2023 Toronto Arts Council report noted about 26 percent of artists the Council surveyed who hadn’t moved in the past three years were considering leaving their homes because of financial constraints. I can only imagine what this means for the city’s Black artists. Rather, I imagine what it removes. A lack of housing for Black artists results in erasure: nullification of our efforts to make art meant to change minds and even lives. A missed opportunity to create spaces for Black creators to feel safe, supported, and empowered to self-advocate. Our lives matter, and so does leaving behind an archive of works future Black artists can learn from. We need housing that can preserve, expand, and protect the Black arts community, and artists for whom the frequency of the city or their particular neighbourhood is central to their output. To prioritize us in the way that’s needed, and begin to correct the current situation, all levels of government need to work together to be sure we are all safely housed. Otherwise, our future in Toronto will be inevitably dim.

Ultimately, I refuse erasure the same way I refuse to leave the city. Because artists are the soul of this city. Perhaps all cities. But Toronto is home to some of the best artists in the world. To leave Toronto would be to leave behind my soul.

Staying here isn’t my final answer, but I’d like it to be. I wanted this to be a love (not goodbye) letter to artists. Now, I am deliberately trying to leave it incomplete. I don’t want to turn the page on this city just yet.

That said, if you’ve seen my poem on the Toronto subway, take its lines in memory of me. Of Toronto artists who tried to make their mark and move the culture, hoping to survive. Some of us will not. In the end, the artist exists diffusely, but ideas need a place to grow. Being able to thrive in Toronto as a creative is a dream I hope I don’t have to shelve away—nor my own future books, for lack of a room of my own in which to realize them.

In the summer of 2023, 200 African asylum seekers were left homeless in Toronto. With nowhere to go, they had no choice but to sleep on the streets after escaping poverty, political violence and climate disaster back home.

While municipal, provincial and federal governments twiddled their thumbs, Black and African organizations in the city rallied together to provide shelter, food and assistance to the group of Black migrants. One of the leading organizations behind the effort was the Rwandan Canadian Healing Centre (RCHC), a Toronto-based group that provides support to Rwandans and others facing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) caused by violence and war. Forwarding a mission of hope, the RCHC gathered collaborators and accomplished what the three levels of government could not: they found local shelter spaces for the migrants.

Canada has a 156-year history of welcoming migrants, asylum seekers and refugees. Today, the country is more diverse than it has been in over a century. In 2021, according to Statistics Canada, more than 8.3 million people, or 23 percent of the population, were, or had ever been, a landed immigrant or permanent resident in the country. This marked the largest proportion since Confederation, beating the previous 1921 record of 22.3 percent and making it the highest number among the G7. People from all over the world have left violent situations to build a new home in the Great White North. This is the story of the Rwandan community as well.

The 1994 Rwandan Genocide against the Tutsi is one of the worst atrocities in modern human history. In the span of 100 days of chaos, close to one million Rwandans were slaughtered by their fellow citizens largely due to their ethnicity. Millions of Rwandans, mainly from the Tutsi heritage, fled the landlocked nation to escape the carnage.

By 2016, Toronto was home to over 1,000 Rwandans. Today, most of the city’s Rwandan population is made up of older Rwandans who came as refugees post-genocide, and a younger generation too young to remember the horrors, but who still live with the scars of that time and long for the promise of a prosperous future. Part of that prosperous future means bringing the Rwandan community together to collectively heal from the trauma of war.

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Kizito Musabimana escaped the 1994 Rwandan genocide as a child and came to Canada as an immigrant after spending years in Kenya. When he got to Toronto, he didn’t expect to spend time unhoused, but that’s part of his story. Now, he’s the founder and executive director of the RCHC. Since adopting Canada as his home, Musabimana has been a leader in the city, heralding the effort to find suitable shelter space for the African migrants over the summer. Facing his own history of PTSD, Musabimana knows how powerful community is, and how important physical spaces like homes, community centres, and third spaces are to mental health.

With the help of other East African organizations, the RCHC wants to create a purpose-built neighbourhood for Toronto residents in the Rwandan community and other groups dealing with trauma. The organization is also working with the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), Canada’s national housing agency, inside their National Housing Strategy Solutions Labs, a project aimed at finding community-driven solutions to the affordable housing crisis. The labs offer local and national organizations funding and expertise to help them solve complex housing problems. One successful project that started within the labs is the Gender Transformative Housing Supporting Women Leaving Violent Relationships: Co-creating Safe-at-Home Hamilton. Another, in association with the Canada Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Research Network (CanFASD) and the Alberta Clinical and Community-Based Evaluation Research Team (ACCERT), aims to create a framework to house youth with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. Through the Solutions Lab, the CMHC provides groups like CanFASD or the RCHC with up to $250,000 through a competitive application process to develop a community-centred plan to solve housing issues as they relate to specific populations. “As a newcomer in Canada who has experienced homelessness,” Musabimana says, “I would have greatly benefitted from an affordable housing project like this, which focuses on community and connection that offers resources to navigate a new country.”

Together with the CMHC, the collective of African communities created the African Canadian Affordable Housing Solution/Model. The model is a framework that details all of the important elements necessary for their vision of a purpose-built neighbourhood. To determine what’s needed, Rwandan and East African communities participated in several interviews, surveys, and workshops to flesh out what an urban village should provide. The design of the AfriCanadian model hinges on three interwoven perspectives: intergenerationality, cooperativism and holisticism.

More than most, African families live together in one place. Grandparents, parents and adult children often cohabitate together as a way to keep familial bonds strong. Building housing with room for multiple generations of residents under one roof is a key element of the plan. The model also hopes to set up cooperative networks of self-governance, so community members have direct decision-making power in how their neighbourhood runs. Most importantly, it offers a holistic approach to mental health. With proper access to public space, recreation and onsite counselling, Musabimana wants the project to centre healing. “We want to recreate the support and community of a traditional African village for African Canadians living in Canada who haven’t been able to experience it. To bring a taste of home to the community,” Musabimana said at the onset of the project.

As of November 2023, the group has already created the framework thanks to community engagement. So what’s next? “Once we are able to identify land, then we will have everything we need to begin the development phase,” Musabimana says. But that is not so easy. The path to housing development, and to carving out space in Toronto, is filled with trouble.

*

Back home in Rwanda, the government, led by Paul Kagame, has been attempting to restore a country that almost destroyed itself. In 2005, the Rwandan government began creating the legal framework necessary to allow agricultural cooperatives that included housing to flourish within the nation’s market economy. Not only smart economic planning, cooperatives were also meant to build reconciliation among a population scarred by trauma. According to International Labour Organization documents, cooperatives in the post-genocide period flourished as many felt the need for protection and safety within the social grouping that they provided.

Here in Canada, the Rwandan diaspora does not have the resources to build the sort of communal neighbourhoods that provide safety, healing and community. A small but growing population in Canada, Rwandese families face the same housing issues other Toronto residents do, but without a historic legacy of property ownership. Although statistics on the rate of homeownership for Rwandan Canadians are scarce, the Black homeownership rate is only 45 percent, while it is 66.5 percent for the general Canadian populace. The reasons stretch from anti-Black racism to housing policy, but it also has lots to do with the generational effect. Generational Canadians have had the time to create communities when housing prices were lower, and because of that many have managed to hold onto legacy housing. The Rwandan community, and many other Black communities (though not all) have relatively recent histories in Canada and have become victims of the jump in housing prices over the last two decades.

In contrast, communities with a longer history in places like Toronto have managed to carve out areas of the city to protect their land rights. One great example is Toronto’s main Chinatown, which has avoided the worst of gentrification through collective organizations like the Toronto Chinatown Land Trust (TCLT).

The TCLT is a community-controlled effort to build an inclusive, culturally competent, and ever-evolving Chinatown in Toronto. Launched in 2023, the land trust is designed to protect the historic Chinatown community from condo developments. They acquire, develop and steward land, in perpetuity, for community needs and benefit. The organization was established by managing director Chiyi Tam, but is governed democratically by its members. An urban planning expert, Tam leveraged her experience with land trusts in both Parkdale and Kensington Market and decided to work with her community to save it from the host of developers buying properties along the Spadina Avenue neighbourhood.

Comparatively late to the game, the Rwandan and East African communities are now trying to get onto that property ladder. They’re searching for a sense of home, support, and for some, a sense of safety for the first time.

*

A filmmaker by training, Musabimana is a bit out of his depth when talking about housing and development, but the African housing project is filled with experts who believe in his vision. A partner with the RCHC, Jonathan Okubay is the executive director of New Nakfa, a nonprofit organization that caters to Eritrean Canadian youth. He has a background in housing development and has become an instrumental part of moving from the CMHC’s solutions lab, which led to the model, into the development phase.

One of the major hurdles now, Okubay says, is getting the city on board to help drive down the price of construction. He says the project will cost anywhere from $250,000 to $500,000 up front. “We’re moving into actual implementation and looking at sites for potential development, and at how we get the CMHC and the feds and the city involved in making the project feasible,” Okubay says. Part of that feasibility has to do with finding a place to build in an already crowded market. “Ideally, we would like to have it in a central location with access to transit nodes, schools and grocery stores,” he says. “Despite the difficulty…due to high land prices, in an ideal world, we would like it to be in Toronto.”

Canadian real estate is some of the most expensive in the world, and the costs are only growing. They’re wildly inaccessible in Toronto, where the price of materials and labour has grown to be one of the highest in Canada. The average low estimate for constructing the hard costs (labour, materials and equipment) of multifamily homes was $250 per square foot. In Calgary, the average low estimate was $190. Currently, Toronto’s hard cost estimates are roughly keeping pace with smaller cities like Phoenix and Denver, which sit at around $180 (U.S.)—or about $244.

Where Toronto exceeds most other cities in cost is at the government level. Fees and levies to build are astronomical in the city. A 2018 real estate study by Altus Group found that fees levied by the government added around $165,000 per unit for high-rise condos and $206,000 for single-family housing. Once the price of land, developer profits and government fees are taken into account, Toronto becomes almost inhospitable to any sort of affordable housing. This means finding a good developer is part of the myriad of hurdles for the community in general.

Musabimana, Okubay and their team have been stuck dealing with government bodies and talking to stakeholders, all the while holding the community close. It has been a process, but one guided by purpose. “I would say we are mainly searching for a land and development feasibility study, then the next phase is fundraising,” said Musabimana.

With all of these challenges, it would be easy for many to get discouraged. Still, a few years ago, no one would have thought this tiny little segment of the city would be part of such a radical vision. Musabimana is positive that the RCHC’s model, co-created with the community, will become a reality. Based on Okubay’s development experience, he believes they could start building the project by spring 2025.

If everything goes to plan, Toronto could soon have an African village in the middle of its urban jungle.

Jenna Rizvi was spending a significant chunk of their time organizing naloxone training workshops and fentanyl testing strip distribution events. But this isn’t what they do for work; they were volunteering during their first year as a student at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver.

In the 2021/22 school year, students at UBC relied on student groups like the Social Justice Centre (SJC) and the Alma Mater Society (AMS), the university’s independent student union, for drug- testing supplies. Rizvi, now a third-year UBC student and member of the SJC’s harm reduction working group, says the university was not widely providing these resources to students at the time.

Now, two years later, UBC offers drug testing supplies to students. But Rizvi says issues remain, particularly around harm reduction policies in student residence. Despite the start of a new provincial decriminalization program earlier this year, residents in collective living situations in B.C., like students in UBC dorms, could be subject to a range of drug policies, including some that severely restrict their use.

In January 2023, the B.C. government launched a three-year pilot program to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of certain drugs to help address the province’s ongoing toxic drug crisis. Under the new program, adults over the age of 18 cannot be charged or arrested for possession of 2.5 grams or less of opioids, crack-cocaine, powder cocaine, meth, and MDMA. Instead, law enforcement is supposed to offer information on local health services and, if requested, treatment options.

“The Province decriminalized people who use drugs to fight the shame and stigma of addictions. Breaking down these barriers will help create new pathways to life-saving services and care, so more people will feel comfortable reaching out for lifesaving supports,” a media relations spokesperson from the B.C. Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions wrote in a statement to This.

But, according to the ministry, drug use on private property may continue to be prohibited in many cases. For people living in collective housing, this could mean they are subject to different policies depending on where they live.

More than 15,000 student residents live on campus at the two biggest universities in B.C.—UBC and the University of Victoria (UVic)—and they are subject to stricter policies. According to the UVic 2023/24 residence contract, the possession, use, or trafficking of illegal drugs could result “in eviction from your Accommodation and/or referral to the Office of Student Life, and/ or the Saanich Police Department.”

In a June statement, a UVic spokesperson said “UVic’s housing policies are adapted every year to ensure the best possible experience for students living on campus. We make changes based on our expertise in creating a safe and healthy university residence community, as well as evolving provincial and federal laws.”

The spokesperson said it was too early to tell how the decriminalization program would affect UVic’s policies, but that the university will continue to monitor and adjust as necessary. When asked if UVic believed this policy followed a harm reduction approach, the spokesperson said all UVic residence staff take such an approach.

Meanwhile, UBC changed the language around the consequences for drug possession and use in its 2023/24 year-round and winter session residence contracts following student advocacy.

Previously, possession, use, and trafficking could result in eviction and referral to the police. Now, possession and use could lead to “the application of Residence Standards points (which could result in an Eviction) or discretionary sanctions,” while the consequences for trafficking remain the same.

“Given the decriminalization of some drugs for personal use in B.C., we are currently working to update the language in our housing contracts to reflect that change,” Matthew Ramsey, director of university affairs at UBC’s media relations department, said in a statement.

“Regardless of the evolution of the language in the contract, our practice will continue to be what it has for some time in these situations—to focus on the wellbeing of our residents.”

Ramsey added that only one student resident has been evicted over the past three years due to illegal drug use that had “repeated and significant impacts on other residents.”

Kamil Kanji, the vice-president academic and university affairs of the AMS, says the new language is a step in the right direction, though more needs to be done.

But Rizvi says the tone of the housing contract remains the same, despite the new language. “The idea that [the housing contract] is based in is the same which is, ‘We’re anti drugs and we’re not trying to help you,’” they say. Rizvi acknowledges the low number of evictions resulting from UBC’s housing contract, but they say the inclusion of such policies creates stigma regardless, reinforcing the idea that it’s okay for people who use drugs to be unhoused and have barriers around education.

In contrast, those at temporary and long-term shelters for unhoused people could potentially expect more lenient rules than those in residence. B.C. Housing, which partners with non-profit shelter operators across the province, follows the Housing First model that emphasizes housing as a basic need and doesn’t impose barriers to access, according to a statement sent to This in June. However, they noted that it is ultimately up to individual non-profit operators to set their own shelter policies.

Of the four Vancouver shelter operators that responded to This by press time, two, Lookout Society and PHS Community Services Society, have open drug use policies. The other two—Directions Youth Services and the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre Association—will not turn away or kick out those who use drugs.

Directions Youth Services, a division of Family Services of Greater Vancouver, offers shelter for people aged 13 to 25. “Our primary goal is to help youth access the services they need to stabilize so they can start to figure out what’s next for them,” says director Claire Ens.

In the meantime, public health researchers and advocates across the province are celebrating the start of the decriminalization program, but say additional measures are needed— particularly as some B.C. towns are trying to bypass the program through new bylaws and Conservative politicians criticize the program.

At UBC, Kanji and AMS president Esmé Decker say the AMS is continuing to work with the university to expand existing drug safety resources on campus, including increasing access to fentanyl and spectrometer testing and creating information campaigns on drug use. Fentanyl testing relies on strips (think pH test strips) to detect traces of fentanyl in a given sample, while spectrometer testing uses infrared light to detect up to six substances in a sample.

Rizvi says UBC should adopt a medical amnesty policy in student housing— something she says the SJC and the Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policies have called for. A medical amnesty policy would allow students to seek help during an overdose without facing repercussions from the university or law enforcement.

Whether it’s around housing or policies that affect campus more broadly, Rizvi says UBC should adopt a more neutral stance on drug use that encourages learning and reduces stigma.

“Let students adhere to what is provincially and federally the law and aside from that, [UBC] doesn’t really have a place, as I see it, in enforcing anything beyond that.”

Illustration by Diana Bolton

Family has always been complicated for me. My father left when I was three, and by the time I was 10 he had disappeared completely. I left home at 16 and struggled to obtain housing, briefly finding stability in a group home. I moved on to various households with my siblings, partners, and friends. In my early 30s I moved to Hamilton, Ontario, where I met my husband, and over the years we came to the decision not to have children. Witnessing my husband’s relationship with his elderly dad taught me another version of family life, where a parent could be kind and self-contained, always happy to see us, and supportive of our decisions. As the youngest offspring of three marriages, my husband has always been very close to his father. While we have never been certain what shape our future will take, we assured my father-in-law that one day he would live with us.

The pandemic quickly accelerated that trajectory, and what it meant to be the primary companions of a senior. That first spring, my then-87-year-old father-in-law and I began a weekly ritual of playing Scrabble. Prior to the pandemic, we had only played a handful of times. But the routine Sunday game grounded us through the first few months of unprecedented chaos. We watched in shared bewilderment as our lives became smaller and more confined. A soldier in the Korean war, my father-in-law had lived through his share of history-defining moments. It was soothing to know that his world had almost ended before, and yet here he was, teaching me new words on the porch. I kept all of our scorecards, creating an index I intended to work into a poetry chapbook about our deepening relationship.

Twice a week that summer, my husband and I visited his father’s nearby apartment, loaded up with laundry detergent, toilet paper, and groceries. By the fall, it had become three times a week, as we realized that in our absence, he was increasingly eating bread and cheese for dinner. We would visit, make dinner, refrigerate the leftovers, and two days later be back again. For that first year, we didn’t see a single friend indoors, but his dad was at the centre of our fiercely protected bubble. By winter, the constant worry about my father-in-law’s health, isolation, and the effort of stocking two apartments culminated in a shared decision: we would move in together.

Many of my friends watched on in bewilderment, pulling their cellphones out of their toddlers’ gooey mouths as I explained what was happening. The gulf between my friends and I felt bigger than ever, as I recounted the mountain of books, file folders, and trinkets my father-in-law owned, and his determination to move them all. I found us a new rental home that had enough storage space for all of his things, cursing him under my breath as I gave away half of my own books in the process. My husband and I developed a series of looks that flashed between us, denoting our surprise, laughter, or frustration as we shepherded his father through his first move in almost 20 years. Upon his arrival in the new house, after an epic snowstorm trapping the moving truck in the street for hours, he declared that he would never move again. This assuredness struck us with both relief and trepidation. We were so exhausted and stressed out from the months leading up to this day that it was rewarding that he was happy and comfortable in our new home. But, at the same time, there was a finality to his statement that caused us to panic: what would our own future look like now?

Adjusting to living with my husband’s father has been challenging at times, in particular due to giving up the privacy of our marriage. Daily tasks like preparing meals are interrupted by his father’s recitations from the daily newspaper. In the middle of cuddling on the couch with my husband, his dad is prone to walk in, armed with a new fact from a recent YouTube search. I have digested more about world history, war, and nature than I have an appetite for, while my own analyses of feminism, social justice, and popular culture have been met with equal reticence. A retired university professor, my father-in-law yearns for a heated debate on the freedom of speech, whereas any kind of raised voice causes me to shut down, panic, or retreat. This dynamic may be typical of the father-daughter archetype, but having grown up without a dad, the struggles characteristic of that bond remain uncomfortable to me. These entangled feelings of anger, amusement, respect, and love are evidence that I am finally, in my late 30s, learning how to have a father.

Perhaps because of the strain it puts on the younger generation, multi-generational living is not very common in Canada, despite its normalcy in other countries around the world. According to Statistics Canada’s “Housing Experiences in Canada: Seniors in 2018” report, only five percent of seniors aged 65 and over lived in multi-generational housing in Canada. In contrast, 15 percent live in senior residences and long-term care facilities. As the pandemic ravaged long-term care homes, the vulnerability and disposability of elders in Canadian culture was exposed. Disregard for the heightened risks of the elderly was regularly vocalized throughout masking and vaccine debates, while a staggering 34,999 people over 60 in Canada died from COVID-19 by April 2022.

Amidst these figures, seniors face daily accessibility issues exacerbated by the pandemic. My father-in-law is very
healthy, but as an 88-year-old, he has required two emergency hospitalizations during the past two years. Neither experience yielded follow-up care from his family doctor; his attempt at a phone appointment left him waiting all day for a call that never came. Despite his media and technology literacy, he could not navigate provincial COVID-19 websites. Instead, I booked my father-in-law for his vaccines, drove him to his appointments, and monitored his symptoms afterwards. My husband ordered him masks he could breathe well in after he experienced problems with other medical masks. The single attempt he made to go out for coffee under the vaccine passport system left him denied entry to a coffee shop, standing outside in the cold, clutching his clinic-issued proof of triple vaccination in confusion; to be admitted to the cafe, he required a QR code, despite not owning a smartphone. I feel acute rage thinking of all of the individuals and families who have struggled in similar, and more pronounced, ways due to barriers in accessibility, exacerbated by other forms of systemic and individual discrimination.

As the world fluctuates in and out of pandemic waves, my father-in-law’s health, safety, and dignity remains paramount in our lives. While no one can predict what their life will look like in the next five years, my husband and I feel particularly uncertain. Every day, out of step with the majority of our generation, we make unseen decisions that revolve around my father-in-law, and shift our larger life goals in line with his aging.

Each morning, my father-in-law encourages me to notice the birds that frequent the feeders in our backyard. Jays, orioles, and cardinals flash primary colors, swiftly taking flight as my dogs barrel toward them. A year ago, I couldn’t distinguish between their calls, but now they ring out separately. “It’s a nice day today,” my father-in-law says, and means it, peering out over the trees. As he holds fast to what autonomy he has left, my husband and I come to terms with our interdependence. Perhaps this is one of the many lessons of belonging in a family, in whatever shape it ultimately takes.

Graphic by Valerie Thai

Canada is in the midst of a housing crisis, and one perpetuating factor is the skyrocketing cost of rent. Rent control is a type of provincial rent regulation law that limits rent increases. While every province and territory restricts the frequency of rent increases, only four provinces have some sort of policy that caps the percentage by which rent can increase. Although some provinces enacted a freeze on rent increases at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, only a couple extended the freeze as the pandemic continues. Here is a closer look at rent control policies across the country.

British Columbia

The B.C. government enacted a rent increase freeze at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. Although the rent freeze came to an end on January 1, 2022, the Vancouver Tenants Union has advocated to reinstate the freeze since many tenants remain in precarious conditions due to the ongoing pandemic.

Manitoba

The Manitoba government’s rent freeze, a temporary measure first enacted in April 2020, has been extended until the end of 2023, but critics have concerns over the actual implications of this policy. The province’s Residential Tenancies Branch has the authority to approve ad hoc requests to increase rent—a power which they exercised 100 percent of the time during the 2019–2020 fiscal year, according to a document obtained by the Opposition NDP through a freedom of information request.

Ontario

Much like B.C. and Manitoba, the Ontario government passed legislation in October 2020 to freeze rent until the end of 2021. Organizations such as the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario and the East York chapter of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) have noted the importance of reinstating the rent freeze.

Quebec

Although the Tribunal administratif du logement has a system for landlords and tenants to agree on a rent increase, the process is not legally required. Moreover, tenant advocates, including the Regroupement des comités logement et associations de locataires du Québec and the Comité d’action de Parc-Extension, note that the power imbalance between tenant and landlord can result in inequitable rent increases, and are lobbying for better laws to protect tenants in Quebec.

Nova Scotia

In November 2020, the government of Nova Scotia passed rent control legislation due to the state of emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a temporary measure though: it first expired in late 2021, but the two percent annual cap has been extended until the end of 2023 as a result of the work of community organizers, housing advocates, and tenants.

Prince Edward Island

P.E.I.’s unit-based, rather than tenant-based, rent control means that the amount of rent increase should be the same regardless of whether the property changes hands. But housing advocates, such as the P.E.I. Fight for Affordable Housing, note a lack of systemic accountability that can result in unlawful rent increases. Moreover, the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation found that average rent hikes in 2020 were well above the rent increase guideline.

Photo by Leonid Iastremsky/Alamy Stock Photo

The COVID-19 pandemic uncovered some of the many disparities affecting Canadian society today. One of the most outstanding examples of this are the deficiencies exposed in senior care facilities and the subsequent calls for aging in place from experts and seniors alike. (Quebec, Manitoba, and Alberta observed the highest rate of seniors who perished as a consequence of COVID-19 while living in long-term care or retirement homes.)

But according to Sue Lantz, founder and managing director of Collaborative Aging, a Toronto-based consulting firm helping seniors “shape [their] own aging experience,” the options available to age in place are limited—and the price tag high.

To age in place, seniors need more than wheelchair- accessible ramps and automatic doors. “You also need to combine that with the right support. And those right supports take the form of social connections, a caregiving team, including home care, and your healthcare access,” Lantz says.

In Options Open, her five-strategy framework, Lantz defines the foundations to age in place as health, housing, social networks, caregiving teams, and resources. “The resources can be everything from your money—but also government funding or insurance plans, or other ways to resource the care or even the house,” she says, highlighting that housing is “like the platform on which the other supports can be mixed and matched.”

As nearly 50 percent of millennials in Canada seem to be delaying their entry into the housing market for various reasons, their retirement options may be undermined. In Canada, access to home ownership is increasingly limited by student debt and precarious employment. For many Albertans, the boom-and-bust economy in the province makes home ownership even harder to attain.

To thrive, seniors need to live in accessible and affordable housing located in walkable neighbourhoods with easy access to services and amenities. But if finding these conditions can be a challenge for anyone earning less than the median income in Alberta’s largest cities, what can less affluent millennials expect when they start turning 65 in 2046? Many young Albertans are anxious for what lies ahead.

For Inés Hernández-Virla and her husband, Luis Virla, home ownership seems a far-fetched dream. Originally from Venezuela, the couple has lived in Calgary since 2014, when Virla was accepted to a PhD program in chemical engineering at the University of Calgary.

Seven years and two children later, they’re still unable to afford a home in any of the walkable neighbourhoods that suit their needs and aspirations in Calgary. Part of the problem, Hernández-Virla says, is that many immigrants are starting from zero. “People born here started working and accruing wealth very young.… This is very difficult for immigrants who arrive here when they’re 30.”

Despite both being employed in chemical engineering, the couple worries about their future prospects—and their children’s. “Lacking access to home ownership limits the capital our children will have to thrive when they grow up,” says Virla.

But at least the Virlas don’t have outstanding debt. For other young Albertans, such as Mitch Dexter, paying back student loans undermines his expectations for building a future. “I don’t feel that it’s really a financial feasibility for me to be planning more than a year in advance,” he says.

After completing a bachelor’s degree in education at the University of Alberta in 2014, it took Dexter two years to land a position in his field of study. “I spent five years not paying those loans back, so now I’m a little bit behind some of my peers,” he says.

Dexter thinks that when he settles his student debt in the next decade, he’ll be able to think about the future—and perhaps even home ownership. “The stability offered by owning a home would be spectacular,” he says. “Especially the sense of pride of ownership, of building a space,” he says. By the time he pays off his student loans, he estimates he will be in his early forties.

But if millennials like the Virlas and Dexter aren’t eventually able to afford to buy a home, their retirement prospects are discouraging .

Today, Alberta is the province with the youngest population in Canada. It also has the highest rate of home ownership among seniors in Canada, but as the province’s population ages, some have raised concerns about dealing with a larger and less affluent senior population today and in the future.

“I don’t feel at all that this government is doing what it needs to do to support seniors in Alberta,” NDP MLA Lori Sigurdson told the Edmonton Journal in February, highlighting the need to support Alberta’s growing senior population. “A lot of housing is quite old, and we need to make sure that those are properly maintained.”

In Alberta, seniors on average spend nearly half their monthly income on expenses related to housing: rent, taxes, and household operations. Furthermore, seniors living in rental accommodations are more likely to live in inadequate housing due to issues related to affordability and dwelling conditions.

With the Alberta government seemingly planning to offload the provision of affordable housing to private organizations, co-operative housing could be part of the solution to a looming problem and allow millennials to age in place when the time comes—even without a nest egg.

Designed with community in mind, co-operative housing offers an alternative to home ownership that’s affordable, accessible and stable. According to Blair Hamilton, program manager at the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada, “[co-op housing] looks at a different set of priorities and gives people the freedom to still exercise together some of the responsibilities and decision-making without having the personal wealth that [home ownership] requires.”

To become a co-op member, all residents have to do is purchase a share. “It’s sort of a cross between renting and owning, and so when you leave you get your share back,” says Beth Nielsen, the president of Sundance, a housing co-op in Edmonton. A share in Sundance costs $2,000.

While co-op members don’t have any equity in their homes, they get “sweat” equity, explains Catherine Leviten-Reid, an associate professor of community economic development at Cape Breton University. “You’re actually contributing some of your time to the functioning of the co-op.”

Housing co-ops are democratic organizations that rely on their members for decision-making, as well as for the operation and maintenance of their premises. According to Hamilton, co-ops allow members “to get a level of control that you won’t get in the rental market.”

Sandra Kendrick has lived in Sundance since 1978 and she’s never felt like a renter. “I believe that a big part of that is that every member has the right to participate in the decision-making. So if something was happening that I didn’t agree with, I had a voice.”

Furthermore, the ability of a housing co-op to remain affordable depends on the volunteer work of members who join the committees that help manage and operate the co-op. And often, the value of this “sweat” equity exceeds the financial benefits for members, as collaborative work helps members develop a strong social capital and a sense of ownership, Leviten-Reid says.

Nielsen describes co-op housing as a big family. “Everybody looks out for one another, and you have some of the family members [you] don’t necessarily get along with so well, like most families. But we all try and look out for one another,” she says.

Co-op members look after one another not only by participating in the upkeep of the co-op, but also by providing internal subsidies that allow for a healthy mix of incomes and backgrounds. “I think the biggest reason that I love living here is because I can help somebody who can’t afford to live here,” says Sherry Kozak, a resident of Sunnyhill Housing Co-operative in Calgary. (The average rent of a two-bedroom apartment in Sunnyside, the neighbourhood where Sunnyhill is located, is $2,000; in Sunnyhill the monthly housing charge for a similar unit is $982.)

This model helps house a segment of the population that would struggle to find suitable housing within their price range: households whose earnings are below the median, yet above the provincial low-income threshold.

“Many of our members, even though they’re not in the subsidized units, are still working class, lower-middle-class families without tons of money, and so they need affordable housing,” says Hamilton. “There’s a benefit to making sure that that proportion of the market is served, and [co-ops] are really good at serving that portion of the market,” he says, noting that housing co-ops give people stable housing, improving educational outcomes for children and community engagement—which also allows members to age in place.

“We’ve got members in different co-ops who’ve been there 25, 30 years,” Hamilton says. “They have their friends, they’re used to their neighbours, they’re active in their co-op and sitting on the board sometimes—and they don’t want to move, but age catches up with all of us.”

For this reason, Sundance members worked to develop senior-friendly, accessible units in their co-op. “We wanted to have a place where we could say, ‘Well, if I can’t do the stairs anymore, I’d like to be able to move over to a building with an elevator and lots of room to turn my wheelchair around if I needed it,’” Nielsen recalls.

Having lived in a townhouse in Sundance for 30 years, Kendrick developed health issues that compromised her ability to go up and down the stairs. “I didn’t actually have to leave my community in order to find accommodations that suit me, which was wonderful,” she says. She was able to remain in her community by moving to an accessible unit in the new building as soon as it was completed in 2009.

For Kendrick, it wasn’t just the accessibility features that allowed her to stay—affordability played an important role too. “I would probably be in an apartment in not a great neighbourhood. And probably just a studio instead of a one-bedroom,” she says. “I honestly don’t know how I would have coped if I didn’t have the co-op.”

Sundance is in Riverdale, a central neighbourhood in Edmonton, located in the city’s river valley and adjacent to downtown. Its location allows residents easy access to an assortment of amenities and activities, important factors for aging in place, according to Lantz. But while it can be hard to find a one-bedroom rental in Riverdale for under $1,000, the monthly housing charge for a unit like Kendrick’s at Sundance is $884.

Similarly, in Calgary, when Kozak lost all her income and savings due to health issues, she was able to remain in her home of nearly 30 years, but the financial aspect was only part of the support she received. “I don’t know how I could have managed if I was somewhere else, because all my neighbours here at the co-op were just so incredible about helping me,” she says. Her neighbours helped her with her groceries, brought her food when she couldn’t cook, and drove her to doctor’s appointments. They still do. “Paying someone to look after you is not the same as your neighbours caring about what happens to you,” she says.

The social component of housing co-ops is especially relevant in provinces that, like Alberta, lack tenants associations, Leviten-Reid says. Both Kendrick and Kozak benefit from remaining active in their communities, being surrounded by a diverse mix of incomes, backgrounds, and ages. This diversity keeps Kendrick feeling young and energized, she says.

Moreover, the nature of the community ensures everyone is looked after. “I love the fact that if my washer breaks down, I just call somebody in the co-op and arrange to have it fixed,” Kendrick says, aware that if she were a homeowner, she wouldn’t be able to afford to pay for any repairs.

“When I’m in the co-op I don’t need to worry about those things because the co-op has put aside money to do that kind of stuff,” she says. “For somebody like me … sort of on the lower end of the income scale, the co-op life was so much better than being a homeowner.”

Co-ops have the potential to effectively support the needs of an aging population, Lantz says. This is especially true if they are based on a solidarity model that includes municipalities and senior services in decision-making, as recommended by Leviten-Reid. Building more co-ops would add to the existing range of housing options—the problem is getting in. Both Sundance and Sunnyhill have long waiting lists ranging between 2 and 10 years, especially when it comes to senior-friendly and subsidized units.

“Sundance doesn’t have a lot of turnover, we generally have maybe two or three moves in a year, which is partly why we have such a long waiting list,” says Kendrick, who also chairs the residence committee. “But what it says to me is that people are here for the long term.”

One of the problems with that is, compared to B.C., Quebec, and Ontario, the number of housing co-ops in Alberta is small. Hamilton says this is because home ownership remained relatively affordable in the Prairies, “but that’s changed over time.”

The main challenge to developing new housing co-ops, and to expanding existing ones, is funding. Since the federal program that supported the development of existing co-ops ended in the 1990s, “there wasn’t a lot of investment in affordable housing for quite a while,” Hamilton says. And while the adoption of the National Housing Strategy (the federal government’s program meant to fund the provision of affordable housing across Canada) may help, to reap the benefits provinces and municipalities should be on board. So far they have been slow to recognize housing co-ops as affordable housing providers because of the existing income mix. Co-ops’ target is at 80 percent of the median market, Hamilton says. “We need to keep talking to municipalities that don’t understand [the co-op model] and be our own best spokespeople.”

If more government funding were available to develop new non-ownership co-ops in Alberta, in which shareholders aren’t required to pay a hefty down payment, millennials like the Virlas and Dexter would have fewer reasons to worry about the future. According to Hamilton, “if [millennials] organize in co-ops now, and they build ones that they think about in terms of aging in place—they won’t have to leave when they get to be 55 or 60.”

PHOTO BY TALHAMUJAHID

“You’re from Scarborough!?”

Scarborough rolled off his tongue like a bitter taste he was trying to get rid of, almost as soon as the word left his mouth. This is one of my first memories of someone’s reaction to where I lived. It sounded heavy with the weight of negative stereotypes. I didn’t know I should’ve hated living here until someone told me to. When I moved to Canada almost a decade ago, I knew nothing about my soon-to-be neighbourhood. But as the day disappeared in the rearview mirror and we drove further down the highway towards our apartment, I noticed how the sparkly downtown Toronto skyline slowly transformed into Scarborough’s brown mid- and low-rise apartment buildings. Initially, the sparkle wasn’t alluring. But slowly, I started seeing Scarborough through the eyes of others, both the media and Torontonians’ perspectives. To some (like wealthy, white people) it was a dangerous crime-ridden wasteland, home to mainly BIPOC folks who lived in Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) buildings. I started internalizing the negative messaging about my community. But with the 10-year anniversary of my move to Scarborough approaching, I’ve done years of internal work to examine the racist, classist, anti-Black, and anti-immigrant notions that altered my perception over time.

Scarborough is located in the east end of Toronto, home to over 600,000 people as of 2016, people from places such as the Caribbean, the Philippines, Africa, China, and South Asia. Before Scarborough became part of the City of Toronto in 1998, it was its own municipality. Advocates such as the Free Scarborough movement have argued that its amalgamation into the “megacity” hasn’t improved life for local residents. Over the last decade, I’ve slowly seen a shift in portrayals of the neighbourhood.

Mornelle Court is a small, vibrant community in Scarborough, spanning seven apartment buildings—two of which are owned by TCHC. I lived and attended school in the area. Words like “dangerous” and “crime” were often thrown around when people spoke about the neighbourhood. Curious about where the community’s reputation came from, I found a string of mid- to late-2000s news stories focusing on its history of gun violence. A connection is often made between TCHC buildings and crime without recognizing the ways a historically underfunded housing system and lack of resources, including access to non-precarious work in Scarborough, reinforces this cyclical relationship. Poverty is criminalized. The Toronto Public Service’s 2020 data shows Scarborough is no more likely to have crime than other parts of the city. But the stereotypes say otherwise. Despite these negative portrayals, people have been actively working on taking back the community by creating initiatives like homework clubs and after-school programs for children to reclaim the narrative.

Last year, I noticed a sign during one of my neighbourhood walks. “Condo luxury without the commitment,” read the tagline for a newly painted and remodelled building in Mornelle Court, owned by MetCap, a management company that has gained a reputation for their ill treatment of tenants. The juxtaposition of 110 Mornelle Court, one of the TCHC buildings undergoing external and structural repairs, being a few steps away from the newly rebranded “condo luxury” building was laughable and insulting. The developers were cashing in on the labour of community leaders to reclaim the neighbourhood, using it as an opportunity to reinvent their apartment building. Despite the freshly painted exteriors and shiny new glass buildings in the neighbourhood, these changes haven’t improved the quality of life for existing residents. Attempts to usher in new wealthy, white residents with promises of luxury and affordability do nothing to address the longstanding issues Scarborough residents face. Even in the midst of a global pandemic, Scarborough is facing its own pandemic with a COVID-19 test positivity rate of 24 percent in April 2021, one of the highest in Ontario, as well as vaccine shortages. The new mirrored apartment buildings will only continue to act as reflectors for the community’s issues.

Witnessing “Scarberia,” or “Scarlem,” undergo a rebranding by developers to become The Borough, appealing to middle-class white people seeking luxurious amenities—is infuriating. “This is Scarborough and it’s Yours to Own,” reads the sign of another new development at Lawrence Avenue and Birchmount Road. East Scarborough has the highest concentration of social housing buildings in Ontario. Residents have poor mobility because of transit deserts. In addition, Scarborough has one of the highest rates of working poor people in Toronto. Homeownership is not accessible for them in this space where they’ve been historically marginalized.

I’ve heard “beautification” and “revitalization” thrown around, which just feels like veiled or coded language. Call it what it is: gentrification. It means creating space for privileged white people to “discover” the value of a neighbourhood I loved before it was trendy or cool. Revitalization is code for gentrification because it never involves the residents who live there. It means fixing up the space, so it meets the standards of new, often white, residents.

Malvern is a northeast Scarborough neighbourhood that is often misrepresented as a crime hotspot, while community members struggle to receive more City of Toronto funding to support the area. Reading articles describing Malvern as a “cultural hotspot”—as one in NOW Magazine did, because the proposed Scarborough LRT (a light rail train that will connect communities in Scarborough to Toronto’s downtown core) will stop there, is baffling. Is this the same Malvern that only a couple of years ago was ranked in the top 10 most dangerous neighbourhoods in the city?

The first year Nuit Blanche, an all-night art festival with installations across the city, came to Scarborough, I overheard a few white people on the Scarborough RT talking about it being their first time in the area. They were “shocked” and “surprised” that the expansive wasteland they thought extended after Kennedy Station was in fact a vibrant and fruitful community. They treated Scarborough like an exotic vacation spot that they “discovered,” or a hidden gem they were uncovering. They ignored how decades before their arrival, Scarborough and its racialized communities deemed it worthy.

There’s an abundance of greenery, like Rouge Park, and beauty beyond the limited possibilities developers see here. Every time I walk into Aunt Elsie’s Caribbean Kitchen, the owners always have a kind word while I check out my box of patties and coco bread.

The cooks at Food Kulture Bistro know my family’s usual Friday night order. The grocery clerks at Food Basics are well acquainted with my shopping habits, often commenting when I’ve gotten a good deal on my produce. This is more than a place to live—I’ve been adopted into a community of people who hold me up. And the more white gentrifiers have access to my safe space, the less safe it feels for me.

Living in Scarborough has truly made me a better person, and I am deeply protective of it. I’ve always loved how I could hear and see home in the faces of people in my neighbourhood. No one did a double take when they heard my accent, or asked me to say certain words like a parrot for their entertainment. It was a place I could just be. I didn’t have to perform my Jamaican identity for anyone. It isn’t uncommon to meet people who are familiar with my hometown in Jamaica, rather than introduced to it through appropriation. In my neighbourhood, there is this unspoken bond where I am my neighbours’ keepers, and they are mine. We are bound by so much more than our postal codes. People whose names I don’t even know look out for me. It is a place I’d like to continue to call home, but with the looming threat of increased rent and invitations extended to outsiders, I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be able to take up space here. Outside of Jamaica, Scarborough is the only place I’ve called home because the community here claimed me. Not because I tried to possess it. Scarborough is not yours to own, gentrifiers.

“house” by waferboard is licensed under CC BY 2.0

In Neepawa, Manitoba—population 4,609 as of 2016—any rental unit that comes on the market is immediately snapped up.

The town’s economic development officer, Marilyn Crewe, says a pork processing plant run by HyLife Foods LP has gone from employing 350 people to 1,500 in the space of 12 years.

“You need to understand …in the ’90s, the town of Neepawa had a population of 3,500,” she says.
“What this has done for Neepawa is that it has created a very tight rental market, and a very tight housing market.

So we are continually trying to work on that as a municipality but, I mean, our vacancy rate in Neepawa is
non-existent, practically.”

The national average for rental vacancy rates in centres with populations between 2,500 and 10,000 dropped by about half since 2015, according to data released by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) in January, going from 6.4 percent to 2.5 percent. Urban centres, defined by CMHC as those with populations over 10,000, have seen only a slight decline over the same five-year period, from 3.5 percent to 3.2 percent. Manitoba has one of the lowest vacancy rates for small centres in the country at 1.9 percent, second only to Quebec at 1.5 percent.

Crewe says there needs to be flexible support from other levels of government. She recognizes her booming community is an anomaly in rural Manitoba and that a plan addressing its housing needs would not necessarily work for places that are struggling to maintain their populations.

Massive change to the local job market is only one of the possible pressures small and rural communities are wont to face, however. Catherine Leviten-Reid, associate professor in the MBA in Community Economic Development program at Cape Breton University, says there are many factors present in small markets that are not typically an issue in large cities, including resource development projects and rental housing being used by healthcare workers coming in on rotation, and other visiting workers.

“I think people may kind of fail to appreciate some of the tension in rural rental markets,” she says. “So first of all, absolutely, there are people who rent in rural areas.”

Cities face their own challenges when it comes to rental markets and housing in general—including short term vacation rentals, something both urban and rural markets share—but Leviten-Reid argues there is more information to be had about housing conditions in large centres. While CMHC releases data every year for cities with populations over 10,000, it only releases information about smaller centres once every five years.

“The alarm bells go off if there is a vacancy rate that goes down below a certain percent,” she says. “But in these rural areas, there’s no baseline. You just end up with these anecdotal stories about how the rental market is being impacted.”

Further, the rental market study conducted in smaller places only takes into account the primary market, which is apartments in buildings that contain three or more units, which are not as common in small towns as they are in larger cities.

Overall, vacancy rates in small centres have trended downwards across the board. According to CMHC data tables, the most dramatic drops were seen in Newfoundland and Labrador and British Columbia, each falling about seven percent. Prince Edward Island went from 3.9 percent in 2015 to asterisks, which indicate that data was suppressed to protect confidentiality or that the data was not statistically reliable, in 2020. Tiny sample sizes are common in data concerning places with relatively small populations.

“I think this highlights that rural communities have rental markets, which as we discussed are often ignored, and that a renter looking for a place to live in small town Nova Scotia or Quebec, for example, faces challenges in finding housing,” Leviten-Reid says. “It’s important to find out what is going on behind these numbers.”