CambridgeToday received the following letter to the editor from Philip Mills, the CEO of Habitat for Humanity Waterloo Region, about the response to the housing crisis.
There’s a growing sense that we’re headed towards an election or two in the not-too-distant future. With federal leadership changes, provincial involvement in international relations, and all the economic uncertainty this brings, we are entering a time of change.
As I think about elections and our representatives, I have my share of quibbles. Even if the party or person you voted for is in power, it’s never perfect. Maybe it’s just me, but as a community, province, and country, we seem to be making it harder than ever for those who represent us.
Maybe it’s social media, maybe we are more divided than before, maybe I just have a rosier view of the past and it’s always been like it is today. But goodness do we ever make it hard.
People often ask me about the root causes of the housing crisis. There are many complex factors at play, most of which are beyond our control. However, there's one factor we often overlook: ourselves. We've created a lose-lose situation for our politicians, to the real detriment of our communities. It's not the only cause of the problem, but we certainly share some of the blame.
We'll call it the affordable housing paradox.
Let's look at Cambridge for example. The City has decided to try and do something about affordable housing. It’s worth noting, that housing isn’t the municipality's responsibility in most cases but in response to the need and for the betterment of the city, Cambridge is going to do something.
Sounds good right? Politicians going out and getting something done?
Well, not everyone is happy. There's been vocal opposition from the community, raising concerns about parking, traffic, and the type of people who might move into these affordable units.
All this while reports are coming out from the MNP Consumer Debt Index that, according to one poll, as many as 50% of people in Canada are $200 or less away from not covering bills and debts. Pair that with the news that in 2024 we had the fewest number of detached homes starts in over 35 years. Things are getting worse and worse. We need more homes than ever and we are building less and less.
Now, I’m old enough to remember our last municipal election where doing something about housing was a huge topic. I regularly see now reports and survey results noting housing as one of the biggest issues for Canadians.
And yet here we are, as a community, telling the very people we voted in not to address the issue we voted them in to address. We ask and advocate for our politicians to do something to fix housing, then yell and complain about the possibility of affordable housing getting built. We demand solutions while blocking action. We expect better without change. And what is a politician to do? Try to address the problem against the will of their voters or do nothing and see the problem continue to spiral.
If we want this crisis fixed, we need to sort out this paradox. Do we want this fixed or not? If so, we need to loudly support the fixes when our politicians respond to our demands for action.
Philip Mills
CEO
Habitat for Humanity Waterloo Region
