Vancouver’s Social Housing Initiative

Last year, Councillor (and now Minister of Housing) Christine Boyle brought forward a motion to Vancouver city council to explore simplifying the process of building social housing throughout much of the city. Council passed the motion, and now, a year later, the final recommendations are heading to council for a vote.

Review the meeting agenda here.
Sign up to speak to this motion here. Select “Vancouver’s Social Housing Initiative”.
Alternatively, submit your comments to council here. Select “Vancouver’s Social Housing Initiative”.

For a detailed review of what this motion entails, please refer to the article we wrote previously:

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September 22, 2024

Last Wednesday (September 18, 2024), Vancouver announced a new initiative to promote the construction of mixed-income social housing.

To recap the two most important point of this motion:

1. Housing proposals in Vancouver must pass many lengthy, expensive processes in order to reach approval - much longer than in other municipalities. In 2024, Altus Group estimated that Vancouver’s application turnarounds had improved, but still added thousands of dollars to the costs of each home. These costs can sink social housing proposals.

2. Land values in Vancouver are very high. Buildings must increase height and density in order to pay for the high land price. This proposal will allow greater heights and densities to help social housing proposals cover the high price of land.

This is an important time make it easier to build social housing. The National Housing Strategy is in effect until 2027, providing financing for housing projects across Canada. The newly-announced Build Canada Homes initiative provides still more money to help build housing. Streamlining social housing will make it much more likely that social housing projects will happen in Vancouver.

While all housing supply improves housing affordability for everyone, social housing improves it faster for lower-income people. Canada has a smaller social housing stock than the OECD average (lagging behind even the USA).

All levels of Canadian government have under-invested in social housing for years. While recent commitments have returned social housing commitments nearly to the absolute levels they reached at their height in the late 20th century, Canada’s population has since doubled, and household sizes have shrunk by 1/3. There is a structural deficit of social housing in Canada.

Review the meeting agenda here.
Sign up to speak to this motion here. Select “Vancouver’s Social Housing Initiative”.
Alternatively, submit your comments to council here. Select “Vancouver’s Social Housing Initiative”.