Speaking on Canada, a great step towards helping would be to address housing by taking empty unowned homes that have been empty for years whilst foreign investors try to find buyers/renters, have the govt purchase & subsidize, and give them to those in need to get people shelter. A warm place to sleep is integral.
Discussion
Empty and unowned homes? Where are those?
I’m curious to know too, quiet sure they don’t exist in big cities. small and mid cities don’t interest foreign investors that much.
It’s mainly in Vancouver and Toronto. Iirc both provincial govts in 2021 & 2022 put out extra tax levies on foreign investors who owned vacant properties (“vacancy tax”) to actually try to address housing issues. There’s tons of data on this, I’d recommend a quick search to find some resources. Not sure how prevalent they are today, but I doubt all that much has changed in only 1-2 years.
Sorry not unowned, too tired. I should’ve said vacant homes owned by overseas investors.
You believe the government should confiscate and take control of owned properties, which have been bought and paid for by people, and provide them to the homeless?
My post says “purchase”, not confiscate. It should also be voluntary, not forced. They could provide fair value to the owners in exchange for the property, and utilize the newly purchased housing to help address homelessness by providing low-or-no cost homes to those in need.
Why would a foreign investor, or a Canadian investor for that matter, want to sell their property to the Canadian government? What would that do to market prices? Who decides what is fair value?
Government policies are the reason for this mess. They are not the solution.
Profit I would assume. What else drives greedy investors who purchase properties en masse in a foreign country and then let them stay empty because no one will rent at their exorbitant prices? I have no idea what it would do to market prices, but the housing market is too high and apparently will crash regardless (or so many “experts” say). The person who decides if the value is fair is the seller, just like if I said “Hey Sikto, I’ll give you $10 for your house” you would have the right to say no because it’s a voluntary choice.
I simply made a suggestion off the cuff that /could/ help. I also never suggested there should be any policies in play that force people into anything. I only said the govt /could/ make offers on these investors properties to purchase and then they /could/ use them to help address the issue by converting them to subsidized housing or using other alternatives, such as free distribution (although that’s utopia and likely would never happen).
Perhaps not THE solution but something that could assist in finding one whilst helping people survive.