A Green and Liberal MPP have worked together to develop a plan they say could fix the Ontario housing crisis in 10 years.
Kitchener Centre MPP Aislinn Clancy and Etobicoke-Lakeshore MPP Lee Fairclough are co-sponsoring a private member’s bill that they say creates a housing-first plan. Experts CBC News spoke to say while not perfect, if passed, the bill would take important steps to really addressing the homelessness crisis being felt in municipalities across Ontario.
Bill 28, Homelessness Ends with Housing Act includes the creation of a portable housing benefit, setting up an advisory committee of people with expertise and collecting data on supportive housing to make sure the province is meeting its targets.
“Every Ontarian deserves a stable, safe, affordable place to live, and this new legislation offers a solution and a clear path rooted in evidence, compassion and a commitment to housing as a human right,” Clancy said in a news conference on Tuesday.
As soon as the home prices hit rock bottom, far below the supply-demand level, people will buy cheap, then raise the price way back up because there will be a bidding war and those with money will still bid the prices way up. House prices are where they should be. The market decides. Only way around this is a pure socialist country where the ‘government’ owns all the land, and rents it out on a perpetual basis to those who want it. They can never sell it, so land prices can never go stratosphere. The government is always owns it. The rent is in lieu of property taxes.
That doesn’t apply when the item has ongoing costs like a land value tax. People don’t bid up items that return a negative value. This is why cars go down in value over time.
A high enough land value tax is the same as a government rent amount, but still allows for individual ownership and the benefits thereof (like being able to make changes to the property)