House for sale image (Credit XFM News)
London is in the midst of a housing crisis. Rent is going up, vacancy rates are at an all time low, and it’s increasing difficult for first time home buyers to buy a home. Abe Oudshoorn is an Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing at Western University and he explains what is really meant when people talk about a housing crisis.
“More and more we’re seeing folks who simply can’t afford a place to live. So, basic economic homelessness, and that transformation I think speaks to what we mean by a housing crisis. Which is this disconnect between the reality of the cost of what it takes to live in this community and what people have to live on when they’re living in low-income.”
Furthermore, Oudshoorn pointed out how the issue is not unique to London and that the housing crisis is not only an issue for those experiencing homelessness or who are low-income.
“You think about inflation of cost over time. So, a conversation we’ve had a lot recently is food inflation. So, we’re seeing the cost of food going up at like three percent per year. You know that seems like man that’s a basic necessity that’s a lot. Where we see wages wage growth is very low. So often kind of in the zero to one percent. We have many many years of stagnant growth at the service sector. And then you look at housing cost growth and housing cost, community to community, we’re looking at on the low-end 18/19 percent up to 70/ 80 percent in major metropolitan areas. So, you have this massive disconnect economically in between two realities which is how much money do folks have and how much does it cost to live. And so that’s where you see this housing crunch affects almost all of us,” said Oudshoorn.
When asked what the government is doing to try to solve this issue, Peggy Sattler, MPP for London West, said that the current government has not really done anything to solve the housing crisis.
But when asked what could be done moving forward to try to help solve the issue she said that we need to “incentivize builders to include affordable units when they are starting the process of new builds”, that we need to fix social housing since the units are in “very very poor condition” and it takes years to get into them, increase the amount of social housing, provide supports for first time home buyers, and “we really need to reform the landlord tenant board.”
Sattler feels that by doing these things we will help to strengthen our community and to try to solve the housing crisis that many are facing.
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