Canada’s National Housing Advocate has just released a study about the financialization of housing. Financialization of housing is about treating housing as a commodity for profit1. Financialization of housing also contributes to high housing costs and homelessness. The Advocate is interested in how treating housing as a commodity affects people’s right to adequate housing. The study includes five reports, which discuss
- the racialized impacts of financialization
- the evolution of global financialization in Canada’s housing market
- financialization in seniors housing
- financialization of multi-family rental housing and
- the impact of financialization on tenants
The National Housing Advocate’s role is to identify systemic barriers that block residents in Canada from their right to adequate housing. These reports about financialization provide the Advocate with important evidence, which everyone in Canada can use to evaluate how they are affected personally. Individuals and groups can also press to limit the impacts of financialization and move toward achieving the right to adequate housing.
For readers outside Canada, the reports offer methodologies for investigating the financialization of housing in a rights based context. They also provide insight about Canadian investors that are active in domestic housing markets of other countries.
You can access the five reports, plus a summary at the Homeless Hub: The Financialization of Housing in Canada
Footnotes
- It includes the structures and systems that support and sustain it as a commodity. For more on the financialization of housing in the international context, try: Housing: Asset Or Necessity? Disobedience May Define It, Along With The Future of Capitalism In the Canadian context try: Financialization of Housing In Canada – Getting A Handle On The Issue
