Canada Mortgage and Housing
Corporation (CMHC)
Minimum Housing Wage: A New Way to Think About Rental
Housing Affordability
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) released its annual
rental apartment survey earlier this month highlighting some stabilization
in vacancy rates, but continued increases in rents in most metropolitan
cities.
The data identify only one part of the rental affordability
issue - rent levels.
The other critical element is how apartment rents
compare to household incomes.
One way to measure how affordable, or
not, average market rents are is to determine the minimum hourly wage
a worker must earn to afford a rental unit without spending more than
the norm of 30 per cent typically used to measure housing affordability.
The concept currently used in the US was adapted to Canada by Steve
Pomeroy of Focus Consulting Inc. using the CMHC average market rent statistics
released each fall.
Rental Market Survey - 2007
Canadian Housing and Renewal Association (CHRA)
On-line Discussion on Housing Program Choices
CHRA has developed a discussion paper to help
Canada move towards a national housing framework that outlives policy
fads or the next election. The paper, written by CHRA´s Research
and Policy Committee, is intended to raise discussion around a number
of different tools and seek input from across the country. It is not
a CHRA position paper.
CHRA would like your views and opinions. Please
read the discussion paper at:
and join the discussion.
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