Canada’s social and affordable rental housing stock is increasingly falling into disrepair as it ages, while vacancy rates are generally tightening. Newly released survey findings from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) provide a snapshot of the structural condition, financial stability and occupant demographics of nearly 593,000 subsidized units stretching across 10 provinces and three territories.
This is derived from both administrative data and individual survey responses, largely capturing the stock in Canada’s largest cities. Notably, nearly 30 per cent of surveyed housing units are located in Toronto, with another 17 per cent split roughly evenly among Vancouver, Ottawa and Montreal.
Across the entire survey base, 43.5 per cent of units are deemed to be in good-to-excellent condition; 37.3 per cent are rated in fair-to-poor condition, but with the largest share of those — 23 per cent — categorized as poor; and the remainder are considered to be average. More than 77 per cent of units built during the past 20 years earn the good-to-excellent rating. However, about 83 per cent of all the examined units are more than 30 years old and 49 per cent were built prior to 1980.
Within the next five years, it’s anticipated that 18.5 per cent of the buildings will need repairs to the building envelope (cladding and/or windows); 17.7 per cent will need repairs to suite interiors; and 16 per cent will need repairs in interior common areas. Where features to promote accessibility exist, they are most likely to be barrier-free building entrances and doorway widths that accommodate wheelchairs, but 37 per cent of the surveyed buildings lack any accessibility features.
A vacancy rate of 2.9 per cent at year-end 2024 was down 20 basis points (bps) from 2023, but 130 bps looser than CMHC’s survey results for 2019. Housing operators predominantly rely on a rent-geared-to-income (RGI) formula, with 84 per cent of tenant households contributing a set percentage of their monthly household income toward the rent. The remainder of units most commonly have rents fixed at a percentage of what’s calculated to be the lower end of market rents within the region.
“New Brunswick, Nunavut and Quebec reported the lowest average rents, while British Columbia and Yukon had some of the highest rents across all bedroom types,” CMHC analysts observe. “Within Ontario, British Columbia and the Prairie provinces, rents fluctuated widely across different centres.”
Housing operators have funding agreements with some level of government that provide a budget for 70 per cent of surveyed units. Municipalities fund the largest share (30 per cent), with provincial/territorial governments funding 23 per cent and the federal government acting as the sole funder for 17 per cent. Non-governmental organizations, often drawing on some component of government funding, are the sponsoring bodies for 11 per cent of surveyed units. There are no funding agreements in place for the remaining 19 per cent of units.
As well, there is no operational deficit funding for 36.5 per cent of the surveyed units. Municipal and provincial/territorial governments most often bridge the gap between operating costs and revenues — for 32.4 per cent and 24 per cent of surveyed units, respectively — but other organizations or a combination of organizations and various levels of government pick up the slack for 5.6 per cent of the units. As well, the federal government provides operational deficit funding for 1.5 per cent of units.
Government-sponsored operators most often have a mandate to provide housing for seniors and families with children. The proportion of non-senior single men and women accommodated in this housing stock varies significantly from province to province, with the smallest complement — 1 to 5 per cent — in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
“Families with children and youth were slightly more likely to receive services from government organizations, while seniors were equally served by both government and non-profit organizations,” CMHC analysts report. “Clientele groups including veterans, persons with disabilities, First Nations, Métis, Inuit, immigrants, refugees, victims of domestic violence and persons exiting homelessness were twice as likely to receive services from non-profit organizations.”
