Barry's Construction

Once a month or so I have breakfast with an old pal who is very much on the left end of the political spectrum. We were discussing the homelessness situation in town, which is very much a part of the overall affordable housing crisis facing Canada.

That's a crisis that's been brewing for decades, and is only going to get worse until our politicos start taking it seriously. Justin got a lot of friendly press when he announced the "National Housing Strategy- a place to call home" initiative a couple of years ago. He even bragged it up on the campaign trail last fall, reminding us that it was he, Justin, who brought us the National Housing Strategy.

Unfortunately, the initiatives this initiative has put forward thus far, have only served to boost the demand side of the supply and demand equation. The number of new housing units produced by Trudeau's "National Housing Strategy" is...  zero.

None!

If you're inviting in a million new residents every year, and putting up only two hundred thousand new builds, demand will obviously outstrip supply. As it has been doing for many years.

The complete lack of a comprehensive housing policy has been a bonanza for the REIT crowd. I'm old enough to remember when Bill Player and Lenny Rosenberg went to jail for flipping those apartment buildings to imaginary Saudi investors for what, $25,000 per unit?

Those same buildings are now changing hands at $250,000 per unit, and the REITs are the buyers. Why? Because they know that there's no threat on the supply side.

If nothing else, I think Bill and Lenny should have their criminal records expunged.

They weren't crooks, they were just ahead of their time.

They were real estate magicians.

Look who is in the White House today; a real estate magician.

And here's a real head-fuck; all that stuff trading at $250 per square foot today was built in the sixties and seventies at ten to fifteen bucks a foot.

That's what happens when housing becomes just another commodity to be traded amongst the wheeler-dealers.

But let's get back to breakfast.

My pinko pal was telling me that his daughter is living happily in a new-build rental put up by Barry's Construction. It's a for-profit rental built with no government subsidies that I'm aware of.

Here's the thing about Barry; he's a Christian who takes his faith seriously. Barry owns a lot of downtown storefronts, and a standard clause in his lease agreements is that nobody who rents a storefront from him is gonna be open on Sunday.

That's remarkable! Visit downtown St. Jacobs on a Sunday. Everything is open! It's their busiest day of the week, and pretty much the whole she-bang is owned by Mennonite Christians!

Barry is obviously one of those outliers who puts faith over profit. He could max out the rent on his new builds. He could get more for his storefronts if he let them open on Sunday.

But he doesn't.


We need more people like that.

Welcome to Canada: bring your own tent

I notice that in his Yuletide address PM Trudeau gives himself a pat on the back for "putting the first ever National Housing Strategy into action."

Not so fast, Fluffy! What do you mean by "action?" So far the only thing that's been put into action in the year+ since this alleged strategy was introduced is this spiffy website called A place to call home.

Dude, a website is not a roof!

There's some interesting stuff in there though. That "Canada Housing Benefit" will subsidize your rent by up to $200 bucks a month! Unfortunately, you have to have a roof before you can get the subsidy. How does that help the homeless?

The other tricky thing is it doesn't kick in till well after the next election. As such it's one of those vote-buying shenanigans not unlike the previous Ontario government's $15 min wage; the only way to get the goodies is to vote the incumbent in again.

Another red flag should be the discrepancy between the headlines ballyhooing the $40B price tag for this program and what the government is actually committing. You have to read the fine print to find out that's not actual program money. That's "joint investment" money, over ten years.

Joint means Fed money, the dollars Trudeau presumably has some control over, plus provincial, plus municipal, plus non-profit, plus private sector. In other words, this is a joint venture by five parties. Trudeau speaks for one of them. To my way of thinking, until the other 4/5ths of the partnership make some solid financial commitments, there is in effect no actual National Housing Strategy.

So let's call it what it is, Mr Trudeau. It's not a National Housing Strategy; it's a "talking about a National Housing Strategy" strategy.


There's a difference.