Reflections from the BSH 2026 Spring Workshop: Insights from Research, Policy, and Practice

From May 12-14, our Balanced Supply of Housing team hosted the 2026 Spring Workshop at the University of British Columbia.  

This event brought together housing policy professionals, community organizers & advocates, government representatives, academic researchers, and more for a riveting three days of knowledge-sharing and collaborative brainstorming. We left feeling inspired, energized, and equipped with actionable insights. 

Our workshop arrived at a key moment for Canadian housing policy. With the next iteration of Canada’s National Housing Strategy fast approaching, the BSH network is more united than ever in our mission to cement a national right to housing in law, policy, and practice. 

Housing Justice Frameworks and Existing Barriers 

We kicked off with a day of panels and roundtables dedicated to the foundational principles of housing justice. These principles grounded us through the first two days of the workshop, where we heard more about the barriers non-profits face when navigating the complexities of existing policy frameworks and digested the rich empirical insights generated by our research partners. 

From the Ground Up: What We Heard from Dr. Ananya Roy 

In a powerful keynote on the first day of our workshop, Dr. Ananya Roy drove home the core tenets heard throughout the day’s discussions. Her provocations challenged us to rethink the housing crisis not as a matter of housing unit scarcity, but one of embedded power relationships that are inequitable at their core. These power asymmetries favour a small number of large corporate landlords and unleash negative impacts along existing gradients of inequity.  

Through work on the frontlines of eviction and homelessness in downtown Los Angeles, Roy highlighted the work of the University of California, Los Angeles’ Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy. This included the Tenant Power Toolkit developed by Hannah Appel. Researchers at the Institute also generated unprecedented data on landlord power, including concentration of ownership and racialized dispossession. They found that Black renters are disproportionately impacted by evictions, making up only 8.8% of California’s occupied renter units, but over one-third of eviction defense users. Further, the top five landlords issuing the highest numbers of evictions were corporations owning some of the highest numbers of housing units across the USA. These findings illustrate one of two key takeaways for housing justice: housing justice is only achievable when we rebalance the extractive and colonial relationships at the root of injustice. 

Through her second provocation: “everything that is solid melts into air”, Roy issued a call for systemic overhaul; without reshaping power relations, incremental wins eventually fade. She gave an example of how housing vouchers rolled out in Los Angeles during the pandemic soon morphed into barriers that forced vulnerable individuals back into precarity.  

These two principles are the foundation of the critical policy gaps that emerged from the first two days of our workshop. 

Housing Justice Is Only Achievable When We Rebalance the Extractive and Colonial Relationships at the Root of Injustice 

Throughout the workshop, participants called out a lack of equitable participation and accountability in housing policy. 

Equitable Participation 

Participation processes for housing sector projects should be designed to serve genuine community needs. To accomplish this, confronting systemic racism and discrimination against Indigenous and racialized communities is essential. 

When it comes to Indigenous housing, a For Indigenous, By Indigenous (FIBI) model should be priority number one. In existing frameworks, Indigenous involvement often stops at the consultation phase. Speakers in the “Indigenous Housing Perspectives” panel called for decolonization that starts with Indigenous leadership. They emphasized that Indigenous governments must be enabled to lead their own community engagement and co-learning and to oversee entire project pipelines, not just the consultation phase. 

Community-based planning at the local level is also a key priority. Cheryll Case from the non-profit planning firm Community in Public drew attention to the need for formal investment in such processes. Her work is based on two case studies in Ontario related to transit development pressures and rising real estate values that generated disproportionate displacement pressure for racialized minorities: Jane & Finch and Little Jamaica-Oakwood Vaughan. Community in Public found that grassroots planners volunteer three times as many hours as they are paid. Surveys and expert interviews with practitioners in these regions identified a need for a task force with Black resident leadership to address speculative displacement and loss of affordability.   

In BC, the need for more equitable community consultation processes for Official Community Plans was also identified. These processes often amplify NIMBY concerns, to the detriment of vulnerable community members. 

Accountability 

Deeply embedded power asymmetries between landlords and tenants often mean that the onus is on tenants to advocate for themselves. Several existing frameworks were decried for failing to hold both landlords and governments accountable.  

Our spotlight on evictions-focused research, featured in BSH’s newly released book Evictions in Canada: The Impact of Evictions on Security of Tenure and the Right to Housing, demonstrated just how wide the gap between landlords and tenants can be. For example, Julie Mah, Martine August and Cloe St. Hilaire’s research on above-guideline rent increases (AGIs) in Ontario revealed that legislative loopholes turn what should be a form of tenant protection into an instrument that privileges landlord profits. Ontario’s Residential Tenancy Act’s AGI provisions allow landlords to apply to exceed rent increase guidelines for rent-controlled units for three reasons: 1) an extraordinary increase in municipal taxes, 2) eligible capital expenditures, and 3) security services. AGIs approved for reasons 2) and 3) are capped at 3%, but there is no cap on increases approved under reason 1). Their research found that AGIs are increasingly being used by financial firms to raise rents and generate revenue: overall AGI filings in Ontario increased by 2.5x between 2012 and 2019. Between 2011 and 2019, financial firms were responsible for 48.7% of all Ontario AGI filings. One Toronto building was bought by a large financial firm that filed four AGIs in five years. During this period of time, eviction filings for this building also nearly doubled. 

Similarly, Sarah Buhler and Margaret Flynn’s research on eviction hearings in Saskatchewan highlighted how these procedures prioritize landlord interests. Saskatchewan’s landlord and tenant legislation mandates that adjudicators consider more “just and equitable” options (i.e., arbitrators have the ability to consider alternatives to evictions) before they dole out an eviction, even if one is justified under the law. However, Buhler and Flynn found that landlords were granted eviction orders in over 99% of rent arrears hearings. Most evicted tenants owed less than 2 months’ rent. 

Everything That Is Solid Melts into Air 

Participants’ stories of rapidly evaporating affordable housing protections illustrate the need for stable, long-term funding for non-market housing, attention to existing supply, and flexibility. 

Stable, Long-Term Funding 

Provincial and federal government bodies are a common source of funding for non-market housing projects, but these often follow a project-to-project model and are at the whim of the ebb and flow of the electoral cycle.  

Recently, the BC government issued its decision to suspend the Community Housing Fund (CHF) and delay progress on the Indigenous Housing Fund (IHF), a devastating blow for community housing providers and the people they serve. Numerous projects already in motion were retroactively cancelled or deferred, after significant investments were already sunk into securing sites, conducting environmental assessments, hiring architects and workers, and more. To make matters worse, inquiries about what happens to these projects have gone unanswered. This has destabilized the future of non-market housing delivery for the province. 

During the panel on “Blended Funding in an Insecure Funding System”, concerns over this suspension were unanimous. Non-profit housing providers all told a similar story of how their funding mix has evolved over time. In the early days of their organizations, they primarily received public funding but have since had to diversify. While provincial and federal government grants are still in the mix, these organizations are also exploring avenues such as community bonds, individual giving, and larger philanthropic donations. 

Representatives of the Aboriginal Housing Management Association also noted a lack of stable funding specific to Indigenous-led affordable housing. They emphasized that distinction-based funding for Indigenous housing, by definition, should be separate from other funding programs and enable Indigenous agencies to build capacity and engagement over the long-run. 

Overall, long-term operational funding emerged as a key missing piece for non-market and Indigenous housing. For example, Lilian Chau, the CEO of Entre Nous Femmes Housing Society noted that utilities, water, etc. often exceed projected operating costs, but operating budgets from government funders have not increased proportionally. 

Attention to Existing Supply 

Existing housing supply is a valuable and often untapped resource for meeting affordable housing need. However, it requires operational funding and stable tenure arrangements to ensure its viability. 

In the BC context, several non-profit housing providers are grappling with the fast-approaching expiry of operating agreements, which are long-term subsidy contracts between non-profit housing providers and the BC government. Representatives of the BC Non-Profit Housing Association (BCNPHA) noted that a sizable portion of units within their existing supply are plagued with aging infrastructure dating as far back as the 1970s. With nearly 30,000 subsidized housing units set to lose government subsidies in 2033, new revenue streams will soon be needed to finance major renovations.  

In the Ontario context, Sean Grisdale’s research showed what happens when federally-owned land is not prioritized for non-market housing development. For his PhD dissertation, Sean documented every sale of public land to private actors in the Greater Toronto Area between 1995 and 2023. He found that more than 97% of all housing units built on land privatized since 1995 are owned by the private market, with non-profit rentals only accounting for roughly 2% of units. 

Flexibility 

Several workshop participants described policy frameworks and loan agreements riddled with restrictions, often disqualifying projects for elements that often pose no significant increase in cost or lead to cost savings down the line. 

One area where added flexibility would deliver great benefits is wraparound supports. First United’s ED Amanda Burrows told the story of a mixed residential/non-residential re-development project led by First United and the Lu’ma Native Housing Society. This project had its federal government funding pulled for being a few percentage points above the program’s 30% non-residential threshold. The non-residential floors of this planned project accommodated Indigenous cultural and ceremonial spaces, as well as a cooling centre, all of which are integral to well-being. These wraparound supports are also cost-saving measures for other sectors, such as healthcare. Such strict parameters don’t serve the community and can ultimately punish the organizations working to improve housing solutions for the most vulnerable populations. 

Creative Solutions to Persistent Problems 

What Can Researchers Do?  

The role of academic research came up throughout all three days of the workshop. Participants highlighted several critical research gaps: 

• The long-term benefits of community housing, including affordable area over time and economic benefits (e.g. job creation) 
• The benefits of culturally-supported and culturally safe housing, including wraparound supports 
• The benefits of a long-term funding model over a project-by-project model 
• Solution-oriented research in general – there is an overabundance of research that documents problems 
• How to manage a transition to a robust non-market housing ecosystem, beyond identifying utopic models in international contexts. Attention to unique political, economic, & social constraints is key 
• Opportunity costs of municipal, provincial, and federal funding programs 
• Organizational strategies for non-profit housing providers that maximize efficiency and scale over time 

Besides these data gaps, participants also identified areas for methodological innovation: 

• Centre Indigenous values & governance in research methodology, for example by incorporating qualitative storytelling methods alongside quantitative methods. Methodologies should be designed to ensure that lived experiences don’t get lost in quantification and that metrics of success reflect lived experiences 
• Incorporate novel “futuring” methods to envision long-term affordable housing and map out transition pathways 
• Prioritize Indigenous co-development of research and Indigenous data sovereignty 

How Should Governance Be Designed? 

On our last day, we discussed optimal governance arrangements across federal, provincial, and municipal levels, as well as overall policy recommendations

Federal government: lead harmonization efforts and shift mandates away from supply 

In our first session of the day, speakers made recommendations for how the federal government can shape the overall national policy landscape for housing: 

• Build greater harmonization across the country, for example: 

• Develop national standards for modern methods of construction 
• Create a national infrastructure that enables data harmonization: there should be one universal data environment or “clearing-house mechanism” for managing government projects across sectors (e.g. housing, transit, environment) 

• Require Build Canada Homes to adopt an income-based affordability framework 

• Include the protection of existing affordable supply in CMHC’s mandate 

• Support the scaling of non-profit asset bases, as well as the scaling of non-profit involvement. This will help eliminate the program-by-program funding model, reduce dependence of the sector on government subsidies, and increase flexibility 

• Set up a national rental protection fund to subsidize non-profit acquisition of older buildings and protect them from private development 

Regional and Provincial Government: Streamline Existing Complexity 

Speakers at the next session discussed the muddy waters of regional and provincial housing development, outlining several recommendations for streamlining these complexities: 

• There is a need for a coordinated, whole-region approach (e.g. across Metro Vancouver), rather than siloed efforts that vary from one municipality to another. Also, regional-provincial coordination should support such initiatives. For example, Metro Vancouver’s Housing Needs Reports should shape provincial investment and land-use decisions 

• BC Housing’s Digitally Accelerated Standardized Housing (DASH) project is a promising model for streamlining construction workflows and reducing unexpected cost increases & bottlenecks during the building process 

• Co-learning and pooling of resources between municipalities is key in a fragmented landscape where different municipalities often have varying capacities to tackle housing 

Overall Policy Recommendations 

We concluded our workshop with five roundtable sessions and a shareback focused on overall policy recommendations for the second iteration of Canada’s National Housing Strategy. Here are some highlights from this final session: 

Rental Protections: Disincentivize Housing as an Investment and Support Tenants 

Viable measures include: 

• A universal basic income 
• Vacancy control coupled with an elimination of above-guideline rent increases 
• Rent control

Federal Land Use Planning: cement public lands as public goods 

Experts suggest the federal government: 

• Change mandates for Canada Lands Co. and other related government agencies to prioritize affordable housing 
• Commit to For Indigenous, By Indigenous (FIBI) housing on public land 
• Collect and share public land data 
• Empower municipalities to acquire land 
• Tie federal funding for land remediation to affordable housing targets 

Create Opportunities for Non-Profit Housing  

Courses of action: 

• Increase investment in community housing by funding non-profit organizations directly, rather than individual buildings or projects 
• Reframe housing as social infrastructure, rather than an investment

Community Land Trusts (CLTs) & Reparations: Enhance Equitable Participation 

CLT leaders advocated for: 

• Increased Indigenous representation in CLTs 
• Mandatory equity audits of CLTs 

Affordable Housing Protections: Plan Ahead 

Participants recommended all levels of government develop policies for the following: 

• Establishing a land value tax (e.g. a land-lift tax) to reduce speculation  
• Incorporating rental housing protections (e.g. rental protection funds) to prevent the loss of affordable housing during upzoning 
• Loosening restrictions to enable the pooling of assets between non-profits in the sector and scale it so that surplus is available for times where extra funds are needed 

What Comes Next? 

This workshop will inform BSH’s recommendations as we look ahead to the next iteration of Canada’s National Housing Strategy. In our upcoming Spring Workshop synthesis report, we will explore ways to expand on the innovative solutions proposed by our participants, aiming to enhance equitable participation, long-term, stable funding for non-market housing, greater landlord accountability, and more. 

The Balanced Supply of Housing (BSH) is a SSHRC-CMHC funded partnership grant led by Dr. Alexandra Flynn at UBC’s Peter A. Allard School of Law, focused on land use, housing financialization, and sustainable housing futures across Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal.