Emily Power was living in her apartment at 272 Caroline Street in Hamilton for less than a year when the owner put the 21-unit building up for sale. The sale took many residents by surprise. Even the superintendent didn’t receive a notice from the owner. Power braced for the worst. She was wary that an investment company would purchase the building and raise rents, either through Cash-for-Keys offers, where landlords offer cash for tenants to vacate the rental unit, or another type of pressure or harassment, since many residents were longstanding, rent-controlled tenants.

Housing cooperatives present a huge potential to the housing stock, not just in Hamilton but across Canada. Co-ops are a popular form of housing all across the world. In some countries cooperative housing makes up over 40 per cent of all housing stock. In Canada, it’s less than one per cent. The Durand neighbourhood, where the Caroline Co-op is, comprises nearly 80 per cent rental units, so there is a lot of opportunity for other buildings to do the same as the Caroline Co-op.

    • teppa@piefed.caEnglish
      43·
      2 days ago

      The Canadian housing market is the worst free market there is, its fully government controlled and hence we have massive shortages.

      • considerealization@lemmy.ca
        11·
        2 days ago

        Afaiu,

        • a real “Free market” is a myth.
        • A fully gov. Controlled market is not a free market by definition.
        • The problem with the Canadian housing market is not government regulation, it is excessive marketization (and not enough of the right kinds of regulation).
        • teppa@piefed.caEnglish
          21·
          2 days ago

          80% of the land in our largest cities is zoned for single family homes. Our developer fees and taxes are also 1/3 the cost of a home and are some of the largest taxes in the world. Bureaucracy takes ages in Canada for permitting, some of the slowest in the world.

          Its fully government contricted, basically a form of price controls via single family home exclusivity, and huge taxes to artificially drop property taxes on existing urban sprawl; so of course there would be shortages.