Calgary’s affordable housing issue decades in the making

Calgary’s affordable housing crisis is on many people’s minds, but experts say this hot-button issue has been stewing for decades.

Ottawa began offloading the affordable housing file to the provinces in the 80s and 90s, which was then relegated to municipalities.

But now, upper levels of government are being called upon to share the wealth with cities and towns to help get affordable housing on track.

“So we have all these people who are vulnerable that are in core housing needs, and we need to make sure that the feds and the provinces realize this cannot continue. They have to come back to the table,” said Murtaza Haider, a professor of real estate management at Toronto Metropolitan University.

And yet Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek says the cause of the crisis is not as important right now. It’s how to fix it.

“Now is a crisis moment where all three orders of government should be working collectively to understand what we need to do together, who are the ones that need to take action, who are the ones that need to manage operations. All of those are pretty heavy conversations we need to have together,” she explained to CityNews.

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The mayor says she would want to hear more and possibly be paid more by other levels of government.

“We rely very heavily with the other two orders of government that benefit from income tax that’s being paid out of our cities. We either need more funding mechanisms if they wish for us to do more, or those two orders of government need to step up and start doing more.”

Haider agrees.

“Ninety per cent of our taxes go to the provinces and the feds, and the money that goes to the municipalities is not even enough for them to deliver on their immediate responsibilities,” he said.

Haider says a hands-on approach by the federal government to getting affordable housing built would be helpful.

Gondek also says better coordination is needed at city hall and that officials need to align more on housing-related matters such as mental health and land development.