home ownership
Most GTA millennials worry they will never own a home
Ihave lived my entire life in Toronto.
I love the neighbourhood I live in and how important it is for me to make sure that the children who grow up in this area should be able to live where they went to school, played their local sports and made lifelong friends along the way.
As well, the children who grew up in the ’90s should have the choice to buy a home, start a family and raise their children in the same neighbourhood they grew up in. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
A recent Ipsos poll of 1,503 GTA residents found that nine out of 10 millennials who responded (those between the ages of 18-35), are somewhat or very concerned with their ability to afford a home in greater Toronto. Nearly seven out of 10 GTA residents expressed a lack of confidence about the likelihood their children will be able to afford a home in the community they grew up in.
The poll also showed that a majority of people in the GTA, 86 per cent, agree that it is important that young families can afford to live and work within the GTA without having to commute more than an hour to get to work. Another 71 per cent disagreed that there are enough homes being built in their city to help keep housing affordable and 67 per cent agreed that the GTA is not well prepared to provide housing for roughly 115,000 new residents that settle here each year.
According to a recent report from the Centre for Urban Research and Land Development at Ryerson University, about 730,000 millennials in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) may be planning to move on from living in their parents’ homes and from sharing with roommates in the next 10 years, potentially creating about 500,000 new households.
In the next decade, we are likely to be part of a significant housing shift as these millennials start looking for homes of their own to start families. If we add the estimated 115,000 new residents that come to the area every year, the GTA will find itself in a housing crisis if we do not increase supply to help meet this demand.
The good news is that there are simple steps that can be taken to help fix the supply problem and improve affordability. Practical things, like making sure the right infrastructure is in place that will support development of new housing, modernizing outdated bylaws, adding laneway housing and cutting red tape.
The best public policy is proactive, not reactive. The time for municipal decision-makers to start thinking about housing choice and supply for all GTA residents who want to own a home is now.
At BILD, we have ideas for simple, straightforward steps municipal leaders can take to increase housing supply and affordability. Find them at buildforgrowth.ca and send an email to your local candidates.
If we can embrace change and solve the housing challenge we face, we’ll be able to look back and say it was change for the better.
Dave Wilkes is President and CEO of the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD), the voice of the homebuilding, land development and professional renovation industry in the GTA. Follow BILD on Twitter, @ bildgta, or visit bildgta.ca.