Not-for-profit sector can yield affordable homes

Profit and affordable housing don’t mix, May 21

Thanks to David Olive for revealing the real housing crisis and the route for its solution. There is no insufficient number of new buildings being constructed; the real shortage is in affordable housing and the private sector is unwilling and likely incapable of being a significant part of the solution.

Housing affordable to even full-time workers earning the average industrial wage, let alone those with lower incomes, will have to come from the not-for-profit sector. The cost of housing construction can also be reduced if the province borrows money on the bond market and makes it available to the not-for-profit sector as governments pay lower interest rates than private corporations.

However, the for-profit sector should not be let off the hook, because, for each parcel of land used by them for building, there is one less parcel available for the average citizen.

Rabbi Shalom Schachter, Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition