Leadnow’s June 2024 Housing Survey Report Back

Leadnow is a democratic, bottom-up organization. We take our direction from our community. As part of that process, we survey our supporters to help shape our campaigns and what we should fight for.

Our first-ever Leadnow Housing Survey has concluded and the results are summarized below. Over 5,549 people responded in whole or in part to the survey.

Increasingly worried

Unsurprisingly, members of our Leadnow community indicated that they are generally worried about the state of housing in Canada right now:

A growing sense of precarity among renters

Soaring housing costs over a short period of time has created a widespread sense of precarity. Of survey respondents who rent, 59.1% are worried about being able to afford a rent increase, 53.1% are concerned about losing their current rental and for those who’d like to move, they can’t find an affordable place to live in their area.

The experience of homeowners:

For those who own their home, 7.3% of respondents indicated they are struggling to pay their monthly mortgage costs, while 15.1% are concerned about affording their mortgage when it is renewed. There was significant concern amongst homeowners for how the housing crisis is impacting family, children, and fellow community members struggling to find affordable long-term housing.

There was strong recognition that the housing crisis in 2024 is particularly acute. 85.6% of respondents who are homeowners agreed or strongly agreed that while they own their home, they don’t believe they could have purchased a home in today’s market.

Drivers of the housing crisis:

When asked to rank what is driving unaffordable rents and home prices, the top responses included corporate greed in housing (74.8%), Lack of Provincial government action and investment in affordable housing (61.5%), followed by lack of Federal leadership on housing (52.5%).

Potential solutions:

When asked to identify the top 3 solutions our community would support in addressing the housing crisis, the top answers included:

1. Build more affordable non-market rental housing, like co-op and non-profit housing
2. Restrict buying housing for investment (i.e. to limit corporate landlords)
3. Implementing tighter rent controls

Next steps:

This is a brand new campaign area for us — we’ve never built a long-term campaign on housing before.

But together, we’ve built a community of people across Canada committed to fighting for justice, dignity, and a climate-safe future for us all, not just the few. A community that has shown time and time again, that we’re ready to step up to challenge corporate greed and fight for the solutions we deserve.

We’ve got big plans to kick off our housing campaign over the coming months. That starts with all of us, building a vision for addressing the housing crisis that puts people, not profits first.

We’ll be sending more updates on the campaign soon - so keep your eyes peeled!