Maytree unveils roadmap to make ‘Build Canada Homes’ deliver deep affordability at scale
With Canada facing a shortfall of more than three million deeply affordable homes, Maytree has released a bold roadmap to ensure the federal government’s proposed Build Canada Homes (BCH) initiative delivers affordability at scale.
Authored by Dr. Carolyn Whitzman, an Adjunct Professor and Senior Housing Researcher at University of Toronto’s School of Cities, and Priya Perwani, a Project Coordinator at the University of Toronto’s School of Cities, the report, Scaling up affordable housing through a “Build Canada Homes” proposal, shows how BCH can go beyond existing strategies and deliver up to 200,000 deeply affordable, non-market homes each year.
The report draws on lessons from Canada’s past and global best practices, offering a federal direct-build model rooted in government land, public ownership, and partnerships with non-profit and mission-driven housing providers.
“The federal government’s current BCH proposal would deliver only a fraction of what’s needed – about 20,000 affordable homes,” said Dr. Whitzman. “But with bold investment and clear priorities, BCH could build ten times that number, especially for those on very low incomes.”
Key recommendations include:
- A $40 billion annual federal investment to finance 80,000 non-market units per year, scalable to 200,000 with provincial, municipal, and non-profit contributions;
- A cost-based delivery model that keeps housing assets in public hands and uses rents to offset depreciation;
- Partnerships with non-profit developers, provinces, municipalities, and Indigenous organizations to maximize affordability and scale;
- Targets tied to actual housing need, especially for people at risk of homelessness; and
- Unlocking surplus government land and zoning reforms to rapidly expand the pipeline for non-market housing.
The roadmap features real-world examples from London, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver, showing how the model can deliver housing at costs ranging from $300,000 to $650,000 per unit.
In a companion submission, Rights-based and ambitious: A new chapter for housing policy in Canada, Maytree urges Ottawa to embed the human right to adequate housing into BCH’s mandate, as required under the National Housing Strategy Act. This includes clear affordability definitions, robust accountability, and meaningful engagement with people who have lived experience of housing precarity.