Private Market Rental

If I said to you that thousands of deeply affordable homes could become available in Ontario through policy change, you might wonder if my head had come away from...

In an annual race to the housing bottom, Canada generally (and Vancouver B.C specifically) has been anointed as proud losers. That's in world-wide competitions for cities demonstrating the least...

Canada has a long history of public support for housing. A lot of that support has gone to the private sector for housing that people own and for housing...

People in Toronto are struggling to put food on the table. The annual report of food bank activity, called Who's Hungry 2024, has some very large numbers. There were...

The National government in the United Kingdom has introduced legislation to re-balance the relationship between private sector landlords and their tenants. Here are a few of the changes that...

Jaimee Frances Edwards is growing plants in her garden. She has no illusions that she'll enjoy the fruits of her labour in the years ahead. She's well aware that...

Housing tailored to those least able to afford it? The concept is having something of a renaissance world-wide. Of the many possible ways of designing this kind of housing,...

Here's a post for Canadians and others who don't follow the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's (CBC) About That series. The story called Why are so many big-city condos sitting empty?...

Thanks to the work of people at dozens of agencies across Canada, anyone with access to a computer and the internet explore the most affordable rental housing in selected...

Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) reports annually on the state of the  private rental housing market in the United States. Recent reports have coined a new term:...

Here are two reports that have significance for seniors living in England. The first report, prepared by Independent Age, analysed data about where seniors are living. The data is from...

Tenants and housing advocates in Ontario may be surprised that Ontario's landlord-tenant rules on evictions are considered best practices in British ColumbiaFor more on proposed eviction reforms in British...

Renting in the United Kingdom? Perhaps you have lived a life summed up by the following: moving through no less than 10 different homes over 15 years, the journey...

Scientific discoveries are flying thick and fast these days. News about AI and ChatGBT are getting a lot of media coverage, but we'd like to draw your attention to...

If you are looking for ways to hold discussions about housing issues, you might want to check out the Housing Hangouts that are hosted by the University of North...

Ricardo Tranjan works at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. He's spent quite a bit of time there focussing on employment and poverty, but at the beginning of COVID,...

In an era of housing affordability crises, a variety of broken solutions have been adopted by a number of countries. The advertised success and persistent failure the solutions is...

Buried in the bad news about the state of commercial real estate in America is a hint of why 'landlordism' will fight tooth and nail to maintain healthy profits...

You have to hand it to capitalists! They are indeed the gods of profit, and can find the narrowest niche market in which to make a few bucks. But...

A little too early perhaps, to sound a version of Pogo's famous cartoon statement: "We have seen the enemy, and it is us." Yes, perhaps. But here at affordablehousingaction.org, where...

Then there's the brother-in-law, needing to replace an old porch door. Alas, it's old enough to be a non-standard size and so needs to be custom-ordered, skyrocketing the cost....

Padraic Kenna and Mark Jordan, writing in The Conversation, argue that the responsibility for homelessness rests squarely with the private rental sector, which has a penchant for evicting its...

Whitney Airgood-Obricki has been studying the rental housing market in the US and recently reported on trends she's observed. Airgood-Obricki is based at the Joint Center For Housing Studies...

Over the past decade at least, it's been easy to view housing circumstances in Hong Kong as otherworldly. There, a combination of limited land and total devotion to free...

Many are concerned about the impact on human lives of scarce truly affordable housing. Those same folks are well aware that in the face of growing affordable housing crises, neoliberal...

Those of you who follow Scottish politics will have noted the departure of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon from the political stage. The reason for her departure is largely due...

How difficult is it in America to make use of Housing Choice Voucher (a.k.a Section 8 Voucher)? Asking that question mid-February, 2023 produced an "I dunno" answer. The last...

Portugal shares the Iberian Peninsula with Spain, which is currently in the affordable housing news for its 'Right to Housing' law. Spain's new law includes regulatory solutions for renters,...

In a democracy, elected representatives are supposed to reflect the interests of their constituents. That mission doesn't always match up with reality, partly because voters don't all hold the...

The Centre for Homelessness Impact (the Centre) has issued a report about renting homes in the private marketThere is certain irony in the timing of this report. For years,...

America, with its world-class incarceration ratesRead, for example, this article in the Clarion Ledger: 'Foolishly sticking with failed system': Mississippi leads the world in mass incarceration , has over...

The article linked below actually sets out with a more ambitious agenda than 'a collection of thoughts.' It considers Why the rental housing market is so deeply broken. As...

Affordablehousingaction.org, has been consistently down on Section 8, a.k.a. Housing Choice, vouchers — once upon a time touted as the solution to America's truly affordable housing woes. The current federal commitment...

United Kingdom Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher popularized a political philosophy of small government, together with a free market for all manner of goods and services. The political theories that...

The Welsh Government is giving local governments more the power to control the use of homesLocal residents are having more and more trouble finding homes they can afford. Tempers...

"Low income renters face long waits for public housing. What happens to those who can't wait?" That question is posed as the headline of the article linked below. 'Wait,' like...

Imagine for a moment that you own a home and you've lived there for 10 years. In that time, the value of your home has gone up. Depending on...

'Small government' is the opposite of the 'nanny state,' where bumbling bureaucrats supposedly bludgeon struggling citizens with overmuch interference in their lives. 'Thatcherism,' 'Reaganism,' and 'Neoliberalism' are celebrations of...

Affordablehousingaction.org is featuring two posts about housing for renters in Canada. The first post is about is a remarkable production by students from Ryerson University. This one is remarkable in...

Housing prices are going up. Housing prices are going up. Housing prices are going up. Not very catchy, but certainly a consistent reprise in the media. Many of these...

Governments are well-versed in the art of seizing land. This isn't just a comment on autocratic non-democracies. Modern democracies know how to do it, too, simply declaring that a...

As we are learning in Canada, adopting the Human Right to Adequate Housing marked an ending and a beginning. It's an ending because after decades of work, Canada's government...

What if Canadian homeowners had suffered the same calamities of the 2008 mortgage meltdown as Americans? Many homeowners in other nations also suffered. Canada largely crested the waves of...

A recent article in i relates that landlords in the U.K. want a makeover. Apparently landlords, like everybody else, just want to be loved and the term 'landlord' is...

Amidst calls for urgently needed social rent housing in England, the Parliamentary Secretary of State for Housing, Levelling Up and Communities has tabled a White Paper. It discusses the...

Don Layton is a Senior Industry Fellow at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. He has just published two papers about housing policy in the United States. His...

Late in the 20th century, economic theorists in the U.S. came to the conclusion that those with low and no incomes did not need to be housed in government...

International investor/speculator-fuelled propaganda leans on neoliberal "small government" ideas. One product is a picture of social/public housing as incompetent government-run disaster still limping along on undeserved life support. A new...

This is the second of two posts that report on a conversation with Martine August, who teaches in the School of Planning at the University of Waterloo. Her research...

Martine August teaches in the School of Planning at the University of Waterloo. Some of her early research drew attention to the redevelopment of public housing projects and how...

Any governments with housing responsibilities or any national housing activists with housing concerns should give a look to a CBC News four-part series on housing in the Canadian North....

Shelterforce is taking a crack at reimagining a functional Section 8 voucher program in the United States. The central premise is "universality:" the idea that such financial support to pay rent...

Featured below, a no-doubt well-meaning article about the American housing, long and earnest, explains why that country can only manage its affordable housing crisis by building so-called "luxury" market...

On the face of it, President Biden's new plans to help low and no income citizens in America seems reasonable: more Housing Choice (Section 8) housing vouchers. Unfortunately, housing vouchers...

The Wellesley Institute is a champion for the social determinants of health in Canada. The Institute has focused considerable attention on the link between housing and health. One example...

Speculation in housing places temptation in the path of investors in England. You have a three bedroom house. You could rent it to a mum with three kids. They...

People looking for evidence of racial inequity in the United Sates need look no further than the National Equity Atlas. Data is organized using 31 indicators, of which three...

Beginning drivers face restrictions. Beginning landlords, not so much. For a moment, let's briefly honour landlords for their historic role as some of society's first good Samaritans. When fearful citizens...

Zoning laws were developed to prevent anybody, including builders, from building just anything anywhere. Reasonable enough to prevent housing next to health-endangering industry, and to build buildings to basic...

Australia already appears to be suffering from the dramatic and devastating effects of climate change while being led, like America, by a government that refuses to see any sign...

The following article begins with a personal adventure in attempting to utilize a Housing Choice (Section 8) voucher in order to rent an apartment. These vouchers were created in...

Two important factors are gradually swinging the attention of house builders in a number of countries away from the 'National Dream' of home ownership — a mantra that has...

Currently there's a great deal of hand-wringing about the 'commodification' of housing, in particular its link to exploding housing prices and to blossoming housing crises everywhere. Some go so...

The Mask? A U.S. legal entity called a Limited Liability Corporation (LLC) is becoming a favourite tool of slum landlords. LLC laws prevents the owners from being sued over...

Cities in more advanced countries have made do for decades with handfuls of emergency shelters for the homeless, their number expanding in the winters of harsher climates. In many...

Just recently, the Business Roundtable, a group of very large companies called a press conference. The purpose? Why, to say that in addition to being about shareholder profits, business...

This article does not reflect upon many interesting facets of London's newly proposed rent controls for the UK's largest city. Instead, we'd like to comment on the meat of a...

In feudal times, land lords laid down the law of the land, or at least the law pertaining to their patch of the land. If they decreed their tenants...

Can government or charitable grants and subsidies fuel a housing revolution and overcome today's affordability crisis? If so, it's sure not happening yet, if ever. Alternatives? Turns out they're popping...

In no small part, affordable housing is a victim of housing industry propaganda, not actual facts. The housing industry, by and large, sings a two-note song. The high note: luxury...

Our headline misuses the term 'red tape.' That usage falls in line with the way affordable housing interest groups such as the homebuilding industry are complaining about 'red tape.'...

The affordable housing crisis is creating a new class of perpetual middle-income home ownership hopefuls. They'd love to own a home, but year after year, the possibility of doing...

Before World War II, America never had the political will to allow low-income employed persons to live in public housing. Unfortunately, by immediately turfing newly employed wage-earners out, the federal...

The parable of the scorpion and the frog — amended (or possibly amuddled) "Please carry me across the river on your back Mr. Tenant," said the Landlord. "Oh no! You will...

Depending on the city you live in, affordable rental housing can be difficult to find, let alone 'rent to own' housing. However, any housing wrinkle may be worth a...

The housing industry in North America has been reminding us ad nauseam for the past few years that it can't afford to build affordable housing.The American Housing Industry’s Addiction...

In Germany's largest city, unaffordable rents made an appearance on the international affordable housing stage in 2018, thanks to activists who were arrested for occupying a Berlin building to...

A recent report from SouthCoast Fair Housing indicates that a Rhode Island resident who actually manages to obtain a Section 8 voucher will be shut out of 93% of...

No surprise, really, that the American Dream of single family home ownership in a nice neighbourhood has always been for rent (minus the ownership portion, of course). Homeowners can carelessly...

An accepted weakness of the American Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Program is that it perpetuates poverty-stricken neighbourhoods with substandard schools, lacking local transportation and other social opportunities. Even without...

A number of factors have been blamed for increasingly unaffordable city homes. One black sheep gaining considerable city attention worldwide is the use of housing exclusively as short term...