Iuri Rezende Souza said he can carry two apartments in his hometown in Brazil, but in Kitchener, Ontario, where he now lives, he cannot even pay an initial payment.
“What I can pay are basically vacant lands,” said the voter of the Kitchener center to CBC News.
Souza said that his best path to the property of the house since he arrived in Canada five years ago would be to buy a vacancy and put a trailer.
“My mother said: ‘If you live in a trailer, what is the point of moving to Canada? You should go back,” Souza said.
With the prices of homes and rental rates that continue to rise in the country, Souza is not alone. It is only one of the many respondents of a CBC news election survey that found that housing is what matters most during this campaign for the April 28 vote.
For Canadians who expect to buy their first house, the message is clear: they want OTTAWA actions and they want it now.
Souza is not convinced that federal politicians are doing enough to address the problem, saying that their approach is elsewhere.
“This total disconnection between everything else and housing is a sign,” he said. “Things are really bad.”
This point of view is shared by Chris Lozinski by Richmond Hill, Ontario. He is working to finish his studies at the University of Guelph, where he plans to vote.
“I am quite disappointed with many of the main platforms because I feel that most of them do not address the cause of the housing crisis,” he said.
Lozinski feels that the property of the house for the Canadians of the Z generation will be almost impossible “without their parents selling their home or delivering it.”
Lozinski said he is concerned that the type of housing that is being completed is not suitable for the budgets of most people.
“They are not buyers oriented for the first time,” he said. “They are starting from $ 1 million up.
“I’ve never seen so much money in my life.”
The builders and defenders want less barriers
Scott Andison, CEO of the Association of Housing Builders of Ontario, said the barriers to build more homes in the province are significant.
Outside the high material costs, Andison said, construction obstacles generally appear from government policies, namely rates and a lack of infrastructure investments.
“This is water, wastewater, roads, things that are needed to build new houses,” he said.
He said that approximately 35 percent of the cost of a house goes directly to the three levels of government, and that “it must be rationalized and reduced significantly.”
He said that cutting the GST in the new housing sales is a good start, but it has to be for all housing buyers, not just the new buyers.
Andison said that current owners can move to a new house, “that releases that for someone else who is waiting for one who can be more appropriate.”
But the defenders of affordability say that it is not just about how many houses are built, but also what type of houses are built.
Philip Mills, CEO of the habitat region for Waterloo humanity, said developers and governments must prioritize affordable options.
“Housing is one of those things that touches everything,” said Mills. “If you can’t pay your home, you can’t certainly pay food, you certainly can’t afford all other things that have increased.”
Habitat for humanity is working on affordable projects in Cambridge and construction planning in Kitchener and Waterloo. Mills said it wants to see that federal parties support local and non -profit developers committed to long -term affordability.
“I want this to be in charge of them. This affects all our communities and is something that will not disappear.”
Mills said some of the policy ideas he listens, however, some hopes are growing.
“Speaking about low -cost financing and the use of public lands for the construction of houses. Those are all excellent ideas, things like that allow us to start and build.”
What the main parties promise
All the main federal matches are making housing a central part of their platforms, but their approaches differ.
The Conservative Party proposes to reduce GST in new homes below $ 1.3 million and link federal funds for municipalities to housing construction objectives. The part also wants to sell 15 percent of federal buildings to create new affordable homes.
The Liberal Party would create an independent agency focused on the development of affordable housing, with billions in financing for Canadian builders of prefabricated housing. Its platform also includes deleting GST for housing buyers for the first time in new and renewed houses of less than $ 1 million.
The new Democratic Party has promised a $ 16 billion strategy to build three million affordable homes by 2030. The party also wants to sell appropriate crown land to build 100,000 units controlled by rent and invest in an additional acquisition of additional public lands.
The Green Party wants to prevent corporations from buying single -family housing and ensuring that any housing with public funds remains permanently affordable. You are also proposing co-life solutions as Intergenerational life.
Voters want more than promises
Souza and Lozinski are among the voters who say they are paying close attention to what the parties are and do not offer.
“Reduce GST for housing buyers for the first time and specifically for new houses, that will only affect some people and will be a very small percentage,” Souza said.
Lozinski said that houses that are unaffordable from the beginning will not solve the deepest problems.
“We need to be careful in the next decade more or less while developing the area, ensuring that the middle class, students and the population that constitute these areas now, are not far behind.
“That is really what I am looking for in any type of local candidate, it is someone who recognizes that they are there to work for the people who vote for them, not for the people who invest in them.”
While none of the parties can resolve the housing crisis in one term, voters in the Waterloo region and the surroundings are watching closely.
