Housing

Canada is in a housing crisis and it’s getting worse with the massive growth of big corporate landlords acquiring tons of apartment buildings and houses only to make profit. ACORN has been fighting corporate landlords and their investors since its foundation in 2004 and has won hundreds of millions in repairs, stopped displacement, and won protections like landlord licensing and registration, municipal anti-tenant displacement laws, stricter rent control laws, inclusionary zoning and more. However, recent phenomenon such as financialization of housing coupled with lack of full rent controls and weak tenant protections, among others continue to put low- and- moderate tenants at a greater disadvantage.

ACORN’s demands

• Mandate disclosure of property ownership across all provinces.
• Stop financialized landlords from buying more affordable housing. Set limits to how much housing can they acquire.
• CMHC should supplement the National Housing Strategy’s Co-Investment Fund with an Acquisitions Fund that would enable non-profit, co-op and land trust organizations to purchase at-risk rental buildings when they come on the market.
• Immediately plug the tax loophole in the Income Tax Act that gives massive tax exemptions to Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs).
• Any CMHC backed financing/ federal funding to corporate landlords should be tied to a no displacement guarantee; housing targeted to people in core housing need, affordable term perpetuity; and minimum maintenance and energy efficiency standards.
• Build a minimum of 1.2 million units of affordable housing in the next decade.

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