Toronto engages academia to address its housing crisis

Key Takeaways:

• Toronto is seeking input from post-secondary students, faculty, and staff to address housing shortages, as part of its broader housing strategies.
• This outreach is linked to the City’s HousingTO 2020-2030 Action Plan and Housing Action Plan (2022-2026), which aim to ensure equitable access to affordable housing for all residents.
• The City will gather insights through an online survey, interactive campus sessions, focus groups, and expert interviews, encouraging participants to discuss housing challenges and explore affordability strategies.

The Whole Story:

The City of Toronto is asking academia for new ideas to address housing shortages.

The city announced it is inviting post-secondary students, faculty and staff to share their thoughts about their housing challenges, ideas and expectations for the future.

“Students, faculty and staff have the best advice when it comes to building housing to serve the academic community,” said Mayor Olivia Chow. “I look forward to hearing from students, teachers and all members of Toronto’s academic community on how we can align with the City’s housing targets, and how we can work together to engage the provincial and federal governments to build more homes.”

The outreach is part of the Academic Housing Strategy, a priority under the City’s HousingTO 2020-2030 Action Plan and the Housing Action Plan (2022-2026) to address housing challenges and ensure equitable access to affordable housing options for all Toronto residents.

The engagement will include an online survey, onsite campus interactive sessions, focus groups and interviews with leading experts to gather insights, share information and develop innovative solutions to address the housing concerns affecting Toronto’s post-secondary community. Participants will have the opportunity to:

• discuss current housing challenges and opportunities
• explore strategies for improving housing access and affordability
• contribute ideas to all orders of governments and academic institutions to improve housing outcomes.

Post-secondary students, faculty and staff are invited to share their experiences, insight and ideas by participating in an online survey  available until Friday, November 1 on the City’s website.

In-person engagement sessions will be held at eight college and university campuses across the city. The full schedule and location details of the drop-in sessions are available on the City’s Academic Housing Strategy webpage.

Toronto’s housing crisis is marked by soaring home prices, with the average home costing around $1.2 million, a 40-50% increase in the past five years. Rent has surged, with a one-bedroom apartment averaging over $2,500 per month, a 15% rise from the previous year, while vacancy rates remain extremely low at 1-2%. The city has over 80,000 households on waiting lists for affordable housing and wait times often exceed 10 years.