Nova Scotia hasn’t built public housing in 30 years. Why that was a ‘huge mistake’

As Nova Scotia continues to grapple with affordability and housing crises, experts are questioning the government’s failure to build new public housing units in nearly three decades.

“If you consider housing as a human right – as a basic foundational structure for your citizenship – yes, it’s a huge mistake,” said Jeff Karabanow, a professor at Dalhousie University and the co-director of Dal’s Social Work Community Clinic.

Public housing is residential space owned and operated by the government, with rent based on a household’s income rather than market rates. It is one part of the “social housing” sector, which also includes co-op and non-profit housing.

Nova Scotia has around 11,200 public housing units and the average age of the structures is 42 years. The last significant public housing project was completed in 1995.

Karabanow said across the country, public housing construction dwindled after the federal government ended a funding partnership with the provinces in 1993.

At the time, he said, the sentiment was that the private market would step in and provide forms of housing for all – part of the “trickle-down economics platform that rarely materializes,” he said.

It didn’t materialize in this case.

“We’ve seen huge increases of people living on the streets; we’ve seen huge increases of folks that are in core housing need,” said Karabanow.

“We’re seeing lots of segments of low-income and middle-income populations that are struggling to find any form of housing.”

More public housing the ‘only way forward’

While Nova Scotia’s housing crunch reached peak crisis levels during COVID-19, advocates say they have been concerned about the dwindling affordable housing supply for years.

“Even pre-COVID, we were extremely concerned with the levels of folks that were on the streets that had nowhere left to go,” said Karabanow. “And that kind of was the beginning of really seeing the outcrop of a disinvestment in any form of social or public housing mechanism.”

There were 4,790 applicants waiting for a public housing unit as of January 2023 – the most recent data made available by the province – a figure representing more than 40 per cent of the total public housing units in the province.

The January numbers are actually a 30 per cent reduction from June 2022, when there were 6,625 applicants on the waitlist.

The province attributes the decrease in part to IT upgrades, as well as a “strong focus” on unit turnaround – “that is, getting vacant units back in service quickly once someone has moved out.”

“We are cautiously optimistic to see the number of applicants on our waitlist decreasing, but the list is fluid and can change,” a spokesperson for the Department of Housing said in a statement.

There is an average two-year wait time to get into a public housing unit, though the statement said that includes both ends of the “wait time spectrum” and most clients wait for a unit for less than two years.

Wait times can vary because clients can either wait for specific communities or buildings, or broaden their options and get in quicker.

The province has said it has no plans to build new public housing units, instead focusing its efforts on improving its current public housing stock.

“We know our units are aging and we are making historical and record investments to improve and preserve them,” the Department of Housing statement said.

“Over the next four years, the province will invest over $50 million in capital funding for major repairs and maintenance. Together with operational funding, we will spend approximately $56 million on public housing this year alone.

“This investment will touch over 7,700 units; more than two-thirds of our public housing portfolio.”

But Karabanow said the province should be doing both – maintaining existing units while also building new public housing units to address demand.

“It’s the only way forward,” he said.

Core housing need

According to the 2021 Statistics Canada census, one-in-10 Nova Scotia households were considered to be in core housing need – households who “live in an unsuitable, inadequate or unaffordable dwelling and cannot afford alternative housing in their community.” An unaffordable dwelling is defined as a household that spends more than 30 per cent of their income on housing.

The difference in core housing needs between those who own their homes and those who rent is staggering. While five per cent of Nova Scotia homeowners were described as being in core housing need, that number is 20 per cent for renters.

Once known as a province with relatively low housing prices, Nova Scotia has seen its rent prices explode in recent years. Last year, Halifax had the highest year-over-year increase in rent prices out of all Canadian cities.

According to the latest national report from Rentals.ca, the average price of a one-bedroom apartment in Halifax was $1,855 in June, with two-bedroom apartments going for an average of $2,141.

Ren Thomas, an associate professor at Dalhousie’s School of Planning whose research focuses on rental housing policy, non-profit and co-op housing, said there isn’t enough rental housing in general.

She said the percentage of households seeking to rent in Nova Scotia is increasing because homeownership is getting increasingly out of reach.

“There’s always been an assumption that people would only need these options (rentals) for a short time … that it’s just kind of a temporary thing and eventually people will own houses,” she said.

“Across most advanced economies, it’s not the case anymore.”

While many Canadian cities have set records in the past few years for housing construction, rental housing is still nowhere near keeping up with demand. And the housing that is being built just isn’t attainable for many people on low-to-moderate incomes.

“Most governments are not planning for the people they have. They’re planning for the people they want to have, and they want to have high-income people,” Thomas explained.

“They don’t want people who earn very little.”

However, she noted that those at the lower end of the income spectrum – such as those working in retail and grocery – are “definitely essential to how our cities function” and are just as deserving of a home.

“It’s a very weak link between the actual households that live here, and the units that are being built.”

The increasing unaffordability of rental housing is driving the demand for public and other forms of low-income housing, but there just isn’t enough supply.

Thomas said in addition to the stagnating public housing stock, there’s also been little growth in the non-profit and co-operative housing sectors, which can provide more affordable options for different groups like those fleeing domestic violence and people with disabilities.

“So housing for all of those groups has really decreased in the last 30 years, 40 years, really. And that’s something that the private market doesn’t provide very well,” she said.

“Private market developers are great at providing housing for anyone in the top, let’s say, 20 per cent of incomes, but not so great at providing it for anyone else.”

In a May 2021 report, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives recommended the province build or acquire 33,490 non-market rental units by developing and funding a 10-year plan to expand the stock of permanently affordable, non-profit and co-op housing.

“Providing shelter predominantly via the private marketplace is at odds with shelter being both a human right and a major social determinant of health, particularly considering the extent to which households live in poverty in Nova Scotia,” the report said.

According to data from the Affordable Housing Association of Nova Scotia, there were 921 actively homeless people in the Halifax area as of June 20 – an increase of nearly 300 since this time last year.

Both Karabanow and Thomas noted that housing affordability issues are being seen across the country, not just in Nova Scotia.

When ‘affordable’ housing isn’t affordable

The National Housing Strategy – a 10-year, $82-billion plan introduced in 2017 – is touted as the “largest and most ambitious federal housing program in Canadian history.”

Through a number of different programs and initiatives, the strategy provides funding for developers, municipalities and provinces to construct new housing and modernize existing units.

The National Housing Strategy website said the federal government is “re-engaging in affordable housing,” and the strategy “provides a platform for the public, private and non-profit sectors to come together.”

But the strategy doesn’t make clear what exactly “affordable housing” means.

A Parliamentary Budget Office report from February 2023 noted that there is “no standard definition of affordability” in the National Housing Strategy – “rather, each program uses its own unique definition, which can lead to the construction of units presented as ‘affordable’ but which in reality may require households to devote more than 30 per cent of their income to housing.”

One of its major programs, the Rental Construction Financing Initiative, assesses affordability relative to median before-tax income at the family level in a given census metropolitan area, which “does not account for the fact that renters generally have lower incomes than homeowners.”

“With this definition, ‘affordable’ rent can be much higher than what renters can afford based on their income.”

Meanwhile, the strategy’s National Housing Co-Investment Fund defines affordable rent as rent that is less than or equal to 80 per cent of median market rent.

This could “lead to the creation of units that are unaffordable for Canadians, since it is possible to pay below-market rent and still spend more than 30 per cent of household income on rent.”

And the Rapid Housing Initiative defines affordable as less than 30 per cent of gross income for targeted groups. The report said these units are “likely to be more affordable” than units supported by the previous two programs.

Karabanow said these varying definitions of affordability can muddy the waters when it comes to creating affordable housing for those who need it the most.

“We can’t forget extremely low-income assistance rates here, extremely low minimum-wage rates here as well. That all impacts this idea of affordability,” he said.

“So the idea of keeping it at 30 per cent of somebody’s income, at least that metes out a more universal sense to what people can afford or not.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which oversees the National Housing Strategy, said more than 175 units of permanent, affordable units were created across Nova Scotia in the first two rounds of the Rapid Housing Initiative – which are priced based on income rather than market rates.

The federal government will also invest $1.5 billion in developing new co-op housing, which will be the largest investment in co-op housing in 30 years.

“To ensure affordability for everyone, we need a drastic increase in housing supply, particularly rental, and more supply of social and affordable housing,” the statement said.

More than $500 million will also be distributed through the multilateral Housing Partnership Framework to “protect, renew and expand community housing.”

More units, more money

Thomas said while the National Housing Strategy provides some money to help maintain and refurbish existing public housing units, there’s “very little set aside for actual construction of new, affordable units.”

After the federal government froze funding for new public housing back in the 90s, some areas – such as Quebec, B.C., and Ontario – have been working on expanding their own social and public housing projects.

But taking the lead on public housing is more of a challenge in a smaller, less populous province like Nova Scotia, which has less money to go around.

“Building housing is extremely expensive. The average cost of building an apartment unit – it varies, but it’s somewhere in the range of $200,000 per unit,” Thomas said. “And maintaining even a public housing unit … (is) pretty much in the range of $20,000, $25,000 per unit per year.”

But Thomas said another thing to consider is the impact of homelessness and core housing needs on other areas of public spending, such as health care.

“If someone has a stable place to live, they use the health-care system less, their health is better, their mental health is better,” she said.

“We should be thinking this way, as Canadians, because we have a public health-care system … if people don’t have stable housing, their health is often the first thing that is more precarious.”

Karabanow noted that governments have “dumped huge amounts of money in emergency, Band-Aid approaches” like shelters, rather than “taking the leap” and investing in sustainable long-term approaches like accessible, truly affordable housing.

He acknowledged it wouldn’t be easy.

“Spending money for any government is not seen as a very viable platform for re-election,” he said. “It just isn’t the way that politics and elections allow for any type of far-reaching and deeper foresight.”

Maintaining and improving existing stock

In an interview, Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister John Lohr said Nova Scotia has one of the highest concentrations of public housing units in the country, with about 11 units per thousand people.

“We’ve got a very good stock of public housing in terms of the numbers, but we know we have a lot of need to maintain and improve it,” he said.

The province’s public housing stock is managed by the Nova Scotia Provincial Housing Agency, a Crown corporation created last year following a damning auditor general report that found the stock was poorly managed by the province’s five former housing authorities.

Lohr noted the province is spending $50 million over the next four years to improve its current public housing stock and upgrade its management system, which was called for in the auditor general report and in a 2021 report by the Affordable Housing Commission, which Thomas worked on.

“We’re reorganizing everything on the human side, and we’re also changing the organization on how we renovate them and update them, and how we track them, and how we manage the whole stock of public housing,” he said.

While the province is firm on its decision to not build new public housing, Lohr said the province is helping to expand its non-profit and cooperative housing sector.

He said in recent years, their efforts have touched about a thousand non-profit and co-op housing units through programs such as Compass, the Housing Trust of Nova Scotia, and the Land for Housing Initiative.

He couldn’t say how many of those units were rent-geared-to-income but said they were a mix of different options with more affordable rates.

In terms of “affordable” units going for 80 per cent of market value – a figure typically touted on housing announcements in Nova Scotia – Lohr said it “doesn’t work for some people, but for those it works for, it’s incredibly important.”

“We’re interacting in just a really broad number of ways in the housing crisis,” he said.

A ‘wicked problem’

Karabanow said while it’s “very, very important” for the province to invest in things like land trusts and co-ops, they make up a smaller proportion of the social housing sector and can be a “huge burden” for non-profits and other entities to run.

He said in order to truly diversify communities and create healthy, mixed-use neighbourhoods as the province’s population grows, more public housing units are desperately needed.

“Government’s role in a pluralistic society is to provide for all, where we see deep, deep gaps,” he said.

“I can’t think of a larger, wicked problem now, as sociologists call it, than our housing structures.”