Baby Needs A New Home

New report highlights urgent need to accommodate projected growth

The recent federal election officially opens the political season in Ontario, with the provincial election scheduled on or before June 2, 2022, and municipal elections on October 24, 2022.

With Ontario’s population growing as we continue to be a destination for international students, business investment and talented entrepreneurs, it is no surprise that housing emerged as a top-five issue for voters during the federal campaign. Each federal party focused on the need to build more housing across Canada as the only real answer to making housing more affordable.

The need for more housing across Ontario was the focus of a new report from Mike Moffatt, Senior Director of Policy and Innovation at the Smart Prosperity Institute and Assistant Professor in the Business, Economics and Public Policy group at Ivey Business School at Western University. Mike has been leading a series of data-driven housing commentaries called Ontarians on the Move.

Moffatt’s summary report, “Baby Needs a New Home,” highlights his data-crunching skills in making this definitive conclusion: If Ontario wants to meet expected population growth and family formations in the coming decade, 1 million new homes will need to be built in the next 10 years.

But along with that statement, and all the data to support it, Moffatt identified that young families with children are leaving urban areas like Toronto and Peel to find more affordable family-friendly housing in places further afoot, such as Woodstock and Thorold. Mike provides the data to show what is happening in the Ontario housing market.

With that point, the report concludes that what remains clear is that “baby needs a new home” is a driving factor in today’s housing market and will continue to be over the decade to come.

This report projects the local housing demand across Ontario’s 49 Census Data Areas, making it a must-read for every municipality as they consider the housing needs of the next generation of #homebelievers in their communities.

“Baby Needs a New Home” makes it clear that family formations are driving the housing demands in our communities and the need for all decision makers to #BeAHousingChampion. To make housing available, attainable and sustainable, we need housing champions in government, industry and communities.