Housing/Canada: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 20:16, 28 October 2022

Does Canada have enough housing? Let's do a housing supply analysis using census data.

All of Canada

Supply
code	count	definition
st	132060	studio unit
1b	2124485	1-bedroom unit
2b	3829965	2-bedroom unit
3b	4982900	3-bedroom unit
4b	3909525	4-bedroom or more
Demand
s0	6850005	Singles with no children
c0	4286165	Couples with no children
s1	1019940	Single parents with 1 child
c1+	4290420	Couples with 1 or more children
s2+	666400	Single parents with 2 or more children

Data source: Canadian Census 2021 https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2021/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&GENDERlist=1,2,3&STATISTIClist=1&HEADERlist=0&DGUIDlist=2021A000011124&SearchText=Canada

The Supply includes all types of housing - including apartments, condos, townhouses and houses. Categorized by the number of bedrooms.

The first thing to notice is there are a lot of single adults (...)( and also a lot of childless couples ), and not very much single-person housing (...)( and also not enough housing made for childless couples ). Thus, most singles end up either...

Living with roommates. (...)( In some cases, there is no other option but to find roommates on semi-anonymous websites. This comes with safety issues and difficulty trusting whether the roommate will even pay their part of the rent. )
Living with parents, even in adulthood. (...)( Some of these single adults may not even be counted "s0" statistic above - some might be counted as "children" in families. The Canadian census defines "child" in a way that has no age cutoff. )
Hastily moving in with someone they just started dating, before really knowing whether it's right.
Living alone in a bigger, and more expensive place than needed.

The last one also takes away housing from families.

Solutions:

subdividing apartments into studios
subdividing suburban houses into duplexes

Nuances:

Obviously this doesn't mean subdividing ALL the homes - just enough to meet the demand.
Subdivision would not take housing away from families. It would make more housing available to families. (see why)Many of today's family-sized houses are inhabited by single adults who would sell their home and move into something smaller (i.e. 1-bedroom condo), but can't find an affordable one (because as the table shows, there simply aren't enough - today's high prices are the market's way of signalling that). By subdividing a few family-sized houses into three 1-bedroom condos, these single adults would move there, freeing up the other family-sized houses for families. Sorry if any of this seems unclear - I'll make a diagram soon.

More considerations

More than 235,000 people in Canada experience homelessness in any given year, and 25,000 to 35,000 people may be experiencing homelessness on any given night. - [1]

The census data used earlier, doesn't include vacant homes. A quick estimate is that 1.3 million homes are vacant, or 8% of the housing stock. [2]

Also not included: office buildings, which could be repurposed into housing as well.

You can help expand this page by joining the discussion.

@@ Line 4: / Line 4: @@
 {|class="wikitable"
-!colspan="2"|Supply
+|''code''
+|''count''
+|''definition''
 |-
-|studio
+!colspan="3"|Supply
+|-
+|st
 |132060
+|studio unit
 |-
-|1-bedroom
+|1b
 |2124485
+|1-bedroom unit
 |-
-|2-bedroom
+|2b
 |3829965
+|2-bedroom unit
 |-
-|3-bedroom
+|3b
 |4982900
+|3-bedroom unit
 |-
+|4b
+|3909525
 |4-bedroom or more
-|3909525
 |-
-!colspan="2"|Demand
+!colspan="3"|Demand
 |-
+|s0
+|6850005
 |Singles with '''no''' children
-|6850005
 |-
+|c0
+|4286165
 |Couples with '''no''' children
-|4286165
 |-
+|s1
+|1019940
 |Single parents with '''1''' child
-|1019940
 |-
+|c1+
+|4290420
 |Couples with '''1 or more''' children
-|4290420
 |-
+|s2+
+|666400
 |Single parents with '''2 or more''' children
-|666400
 |}
 <small>Data source: <cite>Canadian Census 2021</cite> https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2021/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&GENDERlist=1,2,3&STATISTIClist=1&HEADERlist=0&DGUIDlist=2021A000011124&SearchText=Canada<!-- TODO: upload the spreadsheet with the formulas that calculated these numbers --></small>
-The '''Supply''' includes all types of housing - including apartments, condos, townhouses and single-detached houses. Categorized by the number of bedrooms.
+The '''Supply''' includes all types of housing - including apartments, condos, townhouses and houses. Categorized by the number of bedrooms.
+<!-- TODO: turn the table into a bar graph -->
+<!-- XXX: maybe include vacant units as a separate column in the above table, and add them in a lighter-but-similar color for each unit type in the bar graph? i can only do this if there is data on the number of bedrooms in vacant units -->
+<!-- TODO: make another table/graph with the same data shown as people and bedrooms.
+- be sure to show the total number of bedrooms and the total population
+- categorize people as "single", "in a couple with no children", "in a family of 2 (single parent + child)" "in a family of 3 (parent(s) + child(ren))", "in a family of 4 or more (parent(s) + children)"
+- categorize bedrooms as "studio", "in a 1-bedroom unit", "in a 2-bedroom unit", "in a 3-bedroom unit", "in a 4-or-more-bedroom unit", "in a vacant unit (number of bedrooms estimated)"
+- clarify again that units can be apartments or condos or houses etc.
+-->
-<!-- DRAFT:
+The first thing to notice is there are a lot of single adults {{x|and also a lot of childless couples}}, and not very much single-person housing {{x|and also not enough housing made for childless couples}}. Thus, most singles end up either...
-The first thing to notice is there are a lot of single people {{x|and couples with no kids}}, and not very much single-person housing {{x|and not much 'childless couple'-sized housing either}}. This leads to "forever compromising" in a few ways:
+* Living with roommates. {{x|In some cases, there is no other option but to find roommates on semi-anonymous websites. This comes with safety issues and difficulty trusting whether the roommate will even pay their part of the rent.}}
-* Having to live with roommates - in many cases, no other option but to meet roommates as strangers on Craigslist, which may lead to trust problems or rent defaulting where one person has to bare the burden
+* Living with parents, even in adulthood. {{x|Some of these single adults may not even be counted "s0" statistic above - some might be counted as "children" in families. The Canadian census defines "child" in a way that has no age cutoff.}}
-* Having to live with parents, even in adulthood
+* Hastily moving in with someone they ''just started dating'', before really knowing whether it's right.
-* Pressure to hastily enter romantic relationships due to the need for housing
+* Living alone in a bigger, and more expensive place than needed.
-* Living alone in a place bigger and more expensive than one would otherwise need.
 The last one also takes away housing from families.
 Solutions:
-* subdividing apartments into studios
+* [[subdividing]] apartments into studios
-* subdividing suburban houses into duplexes
+* [[subdividing]] suburban houses into duplexes
 Nuances:
-* obviously this doesn't mean subdividing ALL the homes - just enough to meet the demand for housing for all the childless people.
+* Obviously this doesn't mean subdividing ALL the homes - just enough to meet the demand.
-* let's be clear - this wouldn't take housing away from families. It would make more housing available to families. Maybe I need to draw some sort of diagram so people can understand why.
+* Subdivision would ''not'' take housing away from families. It would make ''more'' housing available to families. {{p2|(see why)|Many of today's family-sized houses are inhabited by single adults who ''would'' sell their home and move into something smaller (i.e. 1-bedroom condo), but can't find an affordable one (because as the table shows, there simply aren't enough - today's high prices are the market's way of signalling that). By subdividing a few family-sized houses into three 1-bedroom condos, these single adults would move there, freeing up the other family-sized houses for families. Sorry if any of this seems unclear - I'll make a diagram soon.}}
--->
-<!-- TODO: ==Custom region== : provide instructions how to use the spreadsheet in regional other data. discuss future plans for making this easier -->
+<!-- TODO: ==Custom region== : upload the spreadsheet I used for ==All of Canada==, and provide some minimal instructions how to use it for other regions -->
+==More considerations==
+<q>More than 235,000 people in Canada experience homelessness in any given year, and 25,000 to 35,000 people may be experiencing homelessness on any given night.</q> - [https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/82-003-x/2021001/article/00002-eng.htm]
+The census data used earlier, doesn't include ''vacant'' homes. A quick estimate is that 1.3 million homes are vacant, or 8% of the [[housing]] stock. [https://betterdwelling.com/new-data-shows-canada-still-has-1-3-million-vacant-homes-some-improvements-seen/]
+Also not included: [[office]] buildings, which ''could'' be [[Commercial to residential|repurposed into housing as well]].
+''You can help expand this page by joining the {{talk}}.''