Helping Canada’s Forestry and Rental Housing Industry
December 14, 2008
The downturn in the American housing market has cut demand for Canadian lumber, which means job losses in our forestry industry - from loggers to mill employees to the truckers who deliver the lumber. Helping the forestry industry might provide opportunity to address another national problem: homelessness.About 50% of shelter users have an income, but are unable to find affordable accommodations. Builders have been concentrating on high end housing/condominium construction for the past couple of decades, creating a shortage of private sector entry-level singles or single room housing. Many people in cities like Edmonton and Calgary have resorted to government supported shelters, which are bursting at the seams.
We need a proper national affordable housing strategy aimed at jump-starting entry-level private sector rental housing construction. The non-profit social services sector has been largely ineffective in dealing with the crisis and is not the appropriate way to deal with people whose only need is shelter. The private sector rental development and management industry (in the singles and family multi-unit rental housing sector) has been dormant for years. Incentives would convince the industry to once again become involved in entry-level housing.
Perhaps the government could purchase lumber that is not being sold to the US, and offer it to builders as a grant for building affordable rental housing. Coupled with other funding available, this would have a three-fold benefit: It would preserve forestry industry jobs, provide rental accommodation for those in need of affordable housing and reduce pressure on the overflowing homeless shelters.
Private sector companies have the skills and expertise required to deal with the national housing affordability crisis. I think it is more fiscally responsible to invest in a private sector solution that will work, than a non-profit social sector “solution” that has been proven not to work. What do you think?