In this episode of Policy Crimes, hosts Tristan Markle and Lina Moskaleva talk with longtime anti-poverty organizer and former Vancouver City Councillor Jean Swanson about how Canada went from homelessness being rare in the 1970s to the crisis we see today.

Jean explains how governments once built tens of thousands of social housing units each year, and how cuts in the 1990s to both housing and welfare standards dismantled the safety net that kept people housed. She also describes how “poor-bashing” became a political tool to justify these cuts, and why today’s “affordable” and even “social” housing often isn’t affordable to people on welfare, disability, or seniors’ pensions.

Drawing on 50 years of work in the Downtown Eastside, Jean talks about winning SRO vacancy control, how cities struggle with the costs of homelessness, and why governments could coordinate to end homelessness if they wanted to. She also shares what she thinks needs to happen next, including building 10,000 units of truly affordable housing in Vancouver.

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Guest: Jean Swanson is a longtime anti-poverty organizer in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. She is a former City Councillor and former National Coordinator of the National Anti-Poverty Organization (NAPO). She is the author of Poor-Bashing: The Politics of Exclusion and continues to organize with the Carnegie Housing Project.

Articles referenced:

• An open letter to housing minister Gregor Robertson - Jean Swanson, The Georgia Straight (2025)
• Vancouver Needs Vacancy Controls - Jean Swanson, The Tyee (2023)
• Mansion tax for top one-per-cent property owners would be fairer for the rest of us - Jean Swanson, The Vancouver Sun (2022)
• Full rent control key to saving Vancouver’s last-resort housing - Jean Swanson, The Vancouver Sun (2020)
• A National Housing Strategy to Maintain Homelessness for Decades to Come - Jean Swanson & Sara Sagaii, The Tyee (2017)
• The federal government’s housing strategy is failing Vancouver’s most vulnerable - Jean Swanson, The Georgia Straight (2017)

Vancouver City Council documents referenced:

• Asking for a Change to the Vancouver Charter to Allow the City to Levy a Progressive Property Tax - Vancouver City Council Members’ Motion (2022)
• City funds allocated to Downloaded services - Memo to Vancouver City Council (2021)
• Decriminalizing Poverty and Supporting Community-led Safety Initiatives - Vancouver City Council Members’ Motion (2020)
• Slowing the loss of the last low income SROs in Vancouver - Vancouver City Council Members’ Motion (2019)

Production:

• Producers: Tristan Markle and Lina Moskaleva
• Sound and original music: Matthew Hayter, matthewhaytermusic.com
• This podcast is a project of The Publication Cooperative
  Feedback and ideas: policycrimes@thepublication.ca

Canada’s housing crisis is worsening, with housing need and homelessness numbers rising despite government aspirations to reduce them. In this episode of Policy Crimes, Tristan Markle speaks with Dr. Carolyn Whitzman, Senior Researcher and Adjunct Professor at the University of Toronto’s School of Cities, about two major reports on addressing housing need, which she released in tandem last week.

The first, for the Office of the Federal Housing Advocate, sets out human-rights-based housing targets tied to what low-income households can actually afford. The second, for the Maytree Foundation, outlines a Build Canada Homes proposal to finance and deliver housing at scale. Together, they make the case for building 500,000 homes a year, including 200,000 non-market units, half for very-low-income households most at risk of homelessness.

Whitzman proposes treating housing as infrastructure, with about 2% of GDP ($40B annually) invested to create lasting public assets that address housing need. Drawing lessons from Finland, France, Austria, and Singapore, she discusses how Canada could end homelessness in a generation.

Get extras and support the show: https://thepublicationcoop.substack.com

Guest: Dr. Carolyn Whitzman is a leading Canadian housing and social policy researcher, and Senior Housing Researcher and Adjunct Professor at the University of Toronto’s School of Cities. She has shaped federal housing policy through work with the federal Expert Panel on the Homebuilding Industry and UBC’s Housing Assessment Resource Tools (HART) project. Carolyn is the author of six books, including Home Truths: Fixing Canada’s Housing Crisis.

Topics Covered:

• National Housing Strategy gaps — why affordability targets weren’t tied to income and why major programs missed low-income households.
• Human-rights-based targets — setting goals by income quintiles and using UBC’s HART tools for consistent measurement.
• Scaling housing supply — building 500,000 homes annually, including 200,000 non-market units, half of which for very-low-income households.
• Financing solutions — the Build Canada Homes proposal, investing 2% of GDP ($40B/year) in housing as infrastructure.
• Global lessons — how countries like Finland, France, Austria, and Singapore addressed housing need and reduced homelessness with sustained public investment.

Studies referenced:

• Scaling up affordable housing through a ‘Build Canada Homes’ proposal — Maytree Foundation (September 2025)
• Human Rights-Based Housing Targets and Mechanisms for Canada — Office of the Federal Housing Advocate (September 2025)
• A Human Rights-Based Calculation of Canada’s Housing Supply Shortages — Office of the Federal Housing Advocate (November 2023)
• Home Truths: Fixing Canada's Housing Crisis — UBC Press (October 2024)

Production:

• Producers: Tristan Markle, Lina Moskaleva, and CJ Tremblay
• Sound and original music: Matthew Hayter, matthewhaytermusic.com
• This podcast is a project of The Publication Cooperative
• If you have thoughts, feedback, or ideas, you can email us at policycrimes@thepublication.ca

Canada’s National Housing Strategy was launched in 2017 with bold promises, including cutting chronic homelessness and core housing need by 50%. But eight years later, the opposite has occurred – with increases of about 50%. So what went wrong?

Dr. Nick Falvo walks us through why the strategy didn’t meet these aspirational goals, and he imagines with us what we could have done, and could still to, make a real dent in homelessness in Canada.

Get extras and support the show: https://thepublicationcoop.substack.com

Guest: Nick Falvo spent 10 years working on the frontlines, then received his PhD in public policy from Carlton University where he developed and taught one of Canada’s only university-level courses on affordable housing and homelessness. Nick also worked with the Calgary Homeless Foundation as Director of Research and Data, and with the International Journal on Homelessness as Editor-in-Chief, North America.

Topics Covered:

• Mismatch between the goals and programs of Canada's National Housing Strategy
• What programs and levels of funding are really required to address homelessness
• The role of community housing in counter-balancing explosive growth in real estate prices
• The role of demand-side approaches like income assistance and housing benefits
• Pillars of a credible national housing strategy
• Innovative practices in the housing and homelessness sectors

Articles referenced:

• The Liberal Housing Plan (2025)
• Canada: Ten things to know about the federal role in housing policy (2022)
• Ten things to know about Canada’s newly-unveiled National Housing Strategy (2017)

Studies referenced:

• Comparative municipal spending on housing and homelessness in Canada’s major cities (2024)
• Analyzing shelter utilization in different Canadian provinces: Exploring economic and social factors (2023)
• The co-op difference: Comparing co-op and market rents in five Canadian cities (2022)
• Introduction to homelessness in high-income countries: An open access e-textbook (2022)

Production:

• Producers: Tristan Markle, Lina Moskaleva, and CJ Tremblay
• Sound and original music: Matthew Hayter, matthewhaytermusic.com
• This podcast is a project of The Publication Cooperative
• If you have thoughts, feedback, or ideas, email us at policycrimes@thepublication.ca