Federal Housing Policies Stink!

Vincent J. Curtis

3 Sept 21

Housing crises, their causes and consequences have been written about extensively by American economist Thomas Sowell.  The cause is no mystery, and is an example of the most elementary of economic laws: supply and demand.

When demand increases and supply is strangled, prices rise.  The way to strangle housing supply is for governments to deny new land for development.  The skyrocketing housing prices in Toronto are the direct result of the creation of the “green belt,” which denied new land for housing.  Because house prices go up, the poor and lower income get squeezed out by rising rents.  Subsides don’t help because the lack of new construction means no new rentable housing comes onto the market to accommodate the rising numbers of poor and lower income that grow in size with the general population.  Hence, homelessness.

Hamilton could expand its urban boundary to accommodate 200,000 new residents, but the argument against it is that the polar ice caps will melt!  Densify instead, runs the argument.

In 1835, young Irish immigrants Patrick Murray and wife Mary Radigan bought a 1/5 acre lot (66’ x 132’) on Corktown’s O’Reilly St. and built a house on it.  But in 2035, young Hamilton families are supposed to be content with pandemic-friendly apartments and row houses?  Why?  Because the anointed of today want to make decisions for future Hamilton families based on their superior vision and moral judgement?

Markets work when governments let them.  The answer to housing crises is more land, not subsides or more ham-fisted regulations.  The government is going to solve the problem - it is the problem!

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 The author is a direct descendent of Patrick Murray and Mary Radigan.