Week in Review: May 16, 2025

Here’s a roundup of housing news and issues that ECOHH noted this week:

From ECOHH’s social media

• Aboriginal Alert is an organization that supports families and communities dealing with action when a family member goes missing.

• The Home Repair Assistance Program will reopen on June 02, 2025! Offered by Métis Capital Housing Corporation, this program provides financial support to eligible Métis homeowners for essential home repairs, ensuring safe and comfortable living conditions.

• Wherever Precariously Homed People Are, Their Belongings are at Risk

• Have you visited Alberta towns Picture Butte or Provost or Tofield or Vulcan? The population if each of these towns is about the same as the number of deaths ECOHH has documented since it began holding an annual memorial service for people who had died because of homelessness, in 2005- 1836 people. With this year's 20th anniversary service that total will probably rise to more than 2000.

• Homelessness Planning in Small Canadian Cities: Service Provider Needs for Organizational Change

Relevant housing news 

• Escalating Anti-Homeless Policies Fall Hardest on Disabled People in the US

• Carney’s Liberals Pledged 500,000 New Homes. Who Are They For?

• Only Alberta Will Claw Back New Federal Money for Disabled People

• Social housing is an investment that pays off, study shows

• City did little to help rooming houses tenants left without heat, hot water for months after fire: Ombudsman Toronto

• Habitat for Humanity conference in Halifax discusses affordable housing strategies

• Seven affordable housing projects coming to Calgary amid housing crisis

• Gov. Gavin Newsom urges California cities and counties to ban homeless encampments

• Nova Scotia fixed-term lease loophole to remain in place despite some abuse: official

• Number of unhoused people in Moose Jaw doubles

• Canadian housing starts were up 30% in April, and led by cities, CMHC says

• Rents dropping in Toronto, giving tenants more negotiating power, experts say

• Is it getting any easier to rent in Ontario?

• New homes for dozens of homeless veterans

• Non-profit housing co-op wants exemption from B.C.'s property transfer tax

• Fredericton housing affordability worsening at dramatic pace

• New housing minister says supply, not costs, root of Canada's real estate crisis

• Why the condo market is plummeting during a housing crisis

• Grandmother challenges Ottawa's refusal to apply Jordan's Principle to renovate mouldy home

• Housing N.W.T. rent hikes higher than suggested, some tenants say

• How is Carney planning to build more housing?

• Will the Liberals' campaign promises help fix the housing crisis?

• African Nova Scotian housing strategy launched, but more funding still needed

• Tenants struggle with NWT’s market housing rent hike

• Advocates say GNWT transitional homes plan is ‘excellent idea’

As always, we recommend checking out these sources for additional information on housing and homelessness

• Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness (CAEH) 

• Canadian Centre for Housing Rights

• Canadian Housing & Renewal Association (CHRA) 

• Federal Housing Advocate

• Homeless Hub (Canadian Observatory on Homelessness) 

• Homeward Trust 

• Housing Complex  

• Make the Shift   

• National Right to Housing Network (NRHN)  

• Social Housing & Human Rights (SHHR) 

• Women’s National Housing and Homelessness Network