The Current - Can Co-op housing help Canada's housing crisis?

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

A new co-op development in Toronto will provide more than 600 new units. It's the first major new co-op built in the city for decades. Across the country, waitlists for existing co-ops are years long. We talk about why residents at Helen's Court Co-op in Vancouver love where they live — and why Thom Armstrong, CEO of the Co-operative Housing Federation of British Columbia, sees it as the future way of living. 

This ascent isn't for everyone. You need grit to climb this high this often. You've got to be an underdog that always overdelivers. You've got to be 6,500 hospital staff, 1,000 doctors all doing so much with so little. You've got to be Scarborough. Defined by our uphill battle and always striving towards new heights. And you can help us keep climbing. Donate at lovescarbro.cairro.ca.

This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. Arriving at Kennedy, Kennedy Station. This is a big, complicated project. Tom Clement is heading out to the east end of Toronto's subway line. Tom's the executive director of the Cooperative Housing Federation of Toronto. We are on the site of Kennedy Green Coal, We'll be building 612 co-op units here.

We're in the early stages of construction, and we're very, very excited about this. It's a better use of public land than a parking lot. This property is steps away from both city transit and the connecting suburban Go Transit, and it's the first large-scale new co-op housing development in Toronto in decades. Co-ops offer a way of life and below-market-value rentals, And Tom knows there will be plenty of demand for these new 612 units, in part because of his experience with a smaller co-op project a few years ago. We ended up with 26 units, and we had about 6,000 applications.

We expected a lot, but not that many. That told us that there was a need for affordable housing, and we knew there was a need, and this was just over-the-top need. It's not just here in Toronto, across the country. There are long, long wait lists for people wanting to live in co-ops. This is really a game changer. This project is a game changer because it shows that we can build at scale. We can build a partnership with developers.

We can build a partnership with the municipal government. We can build a partnership with the federal government. I think this is a game changer. We built small co-ops, big co-ops, but this is a co-op at scale. that can really house a lot of people. This Toronto one is under construction, but many co-ops have been around a long time. Like Helen's Court in Vancouver,

it was formed in 1982, and it is an incredibly sought-after place to live even now. Carla Pellegrini waited on the list for three years before she and her husband got in. Now, they, their two dogs, call it home. So there's six buildings, three on either side, This open courtyard is like everyone's favorite part in the spring and summertime. You just like hear kids running around everywhere in the play structure here that was built by community members.

There's NETI. Yeah, so most of the units, like their only option to get out of their apartment is to come out into the courtyard. So it's just a natural place of confluence and chatting. Yeah, we got in. We pinch ourselves every single day. for the last five years. There's a really powerful, like palpable sense of community. You know everyone's names.

You know their kids' names. You know their dog's names. You know the sound of their voice when you hear them out the window in the courtyard. We look out for each other. People are in the hospital. And within hours, there's a list of visitors scheduled every hour for days and meal trains. And it really is like an extended. family, we all look out for each other. And that's pretty rare and pretty special.

My name is Amit Tandon. I'm a media producer. I live here at Helms Court with my wife and my two children as our family grew, as we were trying to develop our careers and juggle everything that comes with life, you know, the ups and the downs. It's been really great to have this security around housing and knowing that your children are around other people who can help out if they need help. As a community, you know, we have a chat group set up with the parents, you know, like, oh, are the kids over? Is my kid over at your place? Or, you know, like, we'll be checking in with each other. It feels incredible. You know, that, having that sense of security within your community is really important as a parent. The way that co-ops are structured as well,

they're meant to kind of exist in perpetuity. So there's no. landlord looking to demolish it and redevelop it and kick everybody out. And so that tenure of housing allows people to really settle in and raise their kids and invest in their altruistic careers and focus on things that improve the city and the community as a whole rather than just trying to make ends meet and focus on themselves exclusively because otherwise as a city so hard to get by. And so I think it gives everyone a little bit of breathing space. Affordability is really important part of it, especially in Vancouver.

You know, if we did not have the security of living here, it would be a really big question as to whether we stayed in Vancouver. I think if you look at just the housing costs, especially even like rental, it's just, It's just really, really out of scope for most people who are making what we would consider, you know, middle class incomes, household incomes, right? It's just really, really hard to make it. Definitely, if we couldn't live at Helen's Court, it's hard to say, you know, where we would be living, but definitely this would be, like, unaffordable for our family.

Some voices of a few people who live at Helen's Court Housing Co-op in Vancouver. Tom Armstrong has been working in. co-op housing for years. Tom's the CEO of the Cooperative Housing Federation of British Columbia. Tom's in our Vancouver story, Tom Armstrong, good morning. Good morning. How are you? I'm great. Let's just begin with a little explainer. How does co-op housing work compared to other rental homes? Well, I would say it's the midway between renting and owning. Co-ops are just non-profit associations form to provide the service of housing to its members. So people who belong to the co-op, are the residents who live in the housing.

They don't own their own homes, but they own the co-op that owns all of the homes. So in a sense, they're both landlord and tenant in the same form of tenure. And they're responsible for taking care of their homes. Unlike, say, like a condo with a condo board, which may have to then do repairs. How does it work in a co-op?

In a co-op, the members elect a board of directors at an annual meeting. The board is responsible for managing the business or supervising the management of the business of the co-op. So they might hire a management company. They may hire trades to do work on the buildings and in the community. And in that sense, they really are masters of their own destiny. It's a form of tenure, not just a way of life.

Rent is high across our country. How does rent in a co-op compare to the cost of a more traditional rental? Well, that's really part of the magic of the co-op model. It's housing at cost. So the members only have to raise enough funds from their monthly rents. to cover the cost of debt service, operating costs, and the money they put into reserves to maintain the capital asset over time. So what you see in co-ops over time is rents dropping very significantly relative to the surrounding market. And that creates a security of tenure that makes it possible for people of all incomes, all household sizes and shapes to live in co-ops without the fear of being either demivicted or renevicted, which is what we see in so much.

of the surrounding market. You want to give me a comparison you have one at your fingertips? I don't know, two-bedroom co-op in Vancouver versus a two-bedroom rental? Oh, it could be anywhere from $800 to $2,000 a month, but the key is that over time, co-ops become much, much more affordable

than the housing surrounding them in the market. Okay, Tom, I'm just going to get you to hold on just for about a minute or so because I want to take our listeners back to the Helen's Court co-op to meet one more person who lives there. This is my living room, also my studio. This is where I live and work.

And then if you come down here, my bedroom and my garden. And I share it with my next door neighbor, and we a long time ago we decided to take down the fence so that we could enjoy it together. And look, I've got my first snowdrops. And that's it. And some would say that it's a challenge to live in 400 square feet, but I have found it to be a liberation because it's in Helen's Court

and because it's not going to be yanked out from under me. It has the sense of a village within the city. And that means a huge amount for this 73-year-old who's been here for 41 years. What that means is for 41 years, I have entered into the courtyard to come home and had accidental encounters with neighbors to get to my front door in that courtyard. You multiply that by 41 years, and that equals an extraordinary layering of relationships. I know every single person by name in this co-op. Every single person, every single kid, every single pet. by name. And so as a single woman, that means that I have an extended family of over 100 people.

That's gold. That's Nettie Wild. Tom, let me bring you back into our conversation. She talked there about, you know, taking down fences instead of putting them up. And we heard from the residents earlier about the sense of community. Is that unique to this particular co-op? It's not unique to that co-op. It's unique to the co-op form of tenure. I, I would suggest. It's so rewarding, listening to those voices. You know, if you asked someone why they moved into a co-op yesterday, they would probably say because it was so affordable relative to the market around it.

But if you ask someone like NETI or any of the other members, why they've lived there for 10, 20, 30, in this case, 40 years, they'll always say it's the community that they've managed to build with their neighbors. Their neighbors, their friends, their business partners, They're shareholders in a common enterprise. And that's what makes the co-op form of tenure so unique and so powerful in the housing ecosystem. Tom, I like people some of the time and some of the time I just want to be on my own. So is a lifestyle for everyone.

Does living in a co-op always mean a cooperative way of life, being involved with neighbors and upkeep? Well, I think part of the magic of co-ops is that you can really make your own choices about how deeply engaged you become in both the business side and the community side of, of the co-op. And I hear you. I'm with you on that one. Some days you come home from work and you just want to retreat into a, you know, your sanctuary. And, and that's possible in a co-op because it's a, because it's a cooperative effort, there's always someone else to pick up the slack if, if on that particular day you just think you need some time to yourself. This ascent isn't for everyone. You need grit to climb this high this often. You've got to be an underdog that always overdelivers.

You've got to be 6,500 hospital staff, 1,000 doctors, all doing so much with so little. You've got to be Scarborough. Defined by our uphill battle and always striving towards new heights. And you can help us keep climbing. Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo.cairot.C.A. Viking. Committed to exploring the world in comfort. journey through the heart of Europe on a Viking longship with thoughtful service and cultural enrichment

on board and on shore. Learn more at viking.com. You know, I'm thinking about this idea of having others around you should you want in a world where we talk more about loneliness and people being in their own silos and their heads in their phones. So is that one of the strongest benefits for modern co-op living? I think it is. You know, I think one thing the pandemic taught us is how much we need each other.

And co-ops may be experiencing a bit of a resurgence now, a renaissance. And I think it's because people realized that without having friends, without having neighbors, without having someone across the way you can rely on to help you out of whatever difficulty you happen to be in, life is just not as rich as it could be. And that's really the magic of co-ops. You lived in a co-op. Do you still live in one? No, I've lived in three over the years.

One in Saskatoon and two in Ottawa. When I moved to BC 25 years ago, the waiting lists were so long, I couldn't get into a co-op. So here I am not taking a spot that would be better serving someone else. What was your favorite part? You know, just what you heard from those members talking, just knowing that I was part of something a little bigger than my own household. And that was so rewarding. The other thing we heard from the residents of the Vancouver co-op that we were listening to,

and you hear this all the time. We heard Nettie there saying she didn't have to worry about the place, quote, being yanked out from under her, which is such a concern for a lot of renters in many, many places in our country. Why is there less risk of being evicted from a co-op? Can you be? Well, you can if you don't follow the rules that you've agreed to impose on yourself. I mean, a co-op is really a democratic enterprise. So members do set rules, but those rules have to be adopted by a vote of the members at a specially called meeting.

So, you know, having to follow a rule that you've given yourself isn't such a big challenge. But, you know, the real key is that in a co-op community and in a co-op system, you're not building homes for investors. You're building homes for residents. So the goal is to keep people housed affordably and securely for as long as they need that. housing and that is something that the housing market desperately needs. In most European countries, the non-market component of their housing ecosystem can be as much as 10 to 20% of the homes in the market. In Canada, right now it's 3%. And we need to do something about that. We need to introduce co-ops at the scale of the problem we're

trying to solve. So we'll talk more about what should happen, but let's just go back because there was a time that co-ops were part of a social movement. A lot of new co-ops were being built in Canada. Take us back to that time. Then it all slows down. What happens? Well, what happened was that government decided not to invest in a form of housing that had proven so successful. Co-ops, most of the co-ops that you'll find across the country were built under a series of federal co-op housing programs.

They started in 1973, and they kind of tap. out in 1992. And some provinces tried to step in and fill that gap. But really, housing is a very expensive and complex proposition. It takes all three levels of government to produce a successful housing outcome. And that's what really happened. The federal government in 1992-93 decided as part of that war against the debt and deficit to download responsibility for housing to the provinces. some provinces downloaded it further to municipal governments, which just didn't have the cash to invest in a housing ecosystem that provided for the needs of people rather than investors.

So that's what happened. Decades of inactivity at the federal level, and that's now changing. Here we are in 2026 in a housing crisis, a housing crunch. This co-op construction in Toronto that I mentioned at the beginning of our conversation, It's called Kennedy Green. This is the first in I think three decades in terms of a large-scale co-op build in Toronto. It is going to put more than 600 new co-op units on the market. What does this project tell you about what is happening with co-ops in Canada?

You know, in short, it tells us that we're back. We're so proud of our friends at the Co-op Housing Federation of Toronto. They have worked for years on this enterprise. And now with the new federal co-op development program at the table with the province with the municipal government, this is absolutely a game changer. This will show people that housing co-ops are back. We're here to stay. And combined with a community land trust model that can be an engine for growth, we can build a new generation of co-ops at the scale of the housing problem in Canada. So congratulations to the Co-op Housing Federation of Toronto for this.

This is a big one, 612 units. Is that kind of the scale and scope we're seeing with other projects across our country? That is at the moment an outlier in terms of size. But, you know, size of housing developments has to match the local market. So 612 homes in that market at that location based on a beautiful design is exactly appropriate for that site. You'll see more modest scale developments in different parts of the country, Vancouver being one of them. And new development has to be suited to the character of the local community, and that's what we're seeing. Do you have a sense of how much co-op building is going on now across our country, big or small?

We're seeing a couple of thousand new homes in the pipeline, and we can see many, many more thousands. It's, you know, the one thing that we have to remember about those federal housing programs is that they produced essentially one-off communities or one-off housing providers. We didn't, for those four decades, really build an engine for growth into the movement. And that's on us. We provided for the homes that people needed at the time, but we didn't create an engine for growth. But that is changing. We now have a very vibrant community land trust ecosystem emerging across the country. We can build, we can buy, we can redevelop.

We can add many, many thousands of homes to the co-op sector. And that's exactly what we're going to do. Tom Clement talked about partnerships. You mentioned, you know, the downloading of housing to provinces and the need for all levels of government to be involved. In 2022, the federal government announced $1.5 billion in funding and loans to build more co-op homes. How significant was that relative to the need for housing? It's very significant. And I would say it's a great start. But, you know, we need to, as Minister Robertson and Prime Minister, Mr. Carney have been saying very consistently we need to build with speed and at scale. We need to develop solutions that are actually at the scale of the problem. Just here in BC, our colleagues at the BC Nonprofit Housing Association estimate that we need to build 12,500 new homes every year for the next 10 years for people earning $50,000 a year

or less. That's a huge hole to dig ourselves out of. But we're starting. and government is now investing at all levels. What we need is a sustained level of investment in housing, not something that's attached to one electoral cycle or one budget cycle. We need decades of investment in permanently affordable, secure co-op housing. It's a tough time for the economy.

What about people who say, why should government spend more money on co-op housing? This is exactly the time to double down. Counter-cyclical investments in housing are exactly what the market needs and exactly what people need. You have to remember that when, the market slows down in private housing development, the entire development industry slows down. We can put that industry to work, building new co-op homes that are safe, secure, and

permanently affordable for people who really, really need them. The builders will come from the private sector, and we've heard about having to give, you know, incentives for all kinds of different housing projects to developers. What is the pitch to the private sector? Like, what do you say, you should go build the co-op because, dot, dot, dot. Fill that in for me. Well, we pay market rates to builders and suppliers in putting new homes

into the ground. So it's really, the pitch to developers and builders is come and work with us. You'll not only be keeping your business profitable, but you'll be doing some good in the market, in the economy. And

that's a win-win proposal for not only builders, but for people who desperately need affordable homes. So the pitch is do good work, receive some fulfillment in terms of providing this rather than just a complete profit motivation. Exactly. And we find that builders are tripping over each other to come and work on affordable housing, community-based housing, not just co-ops, but nonprofits. And our colleagues at the Co-op Housing Federation of Canada are really promoting that model across the entire country. And as I said, we're seeing, I think we're on the cusp of a real renaissance in co-op housing, unlike anything we've seen since the mid-80s. What gives you that belief?

I see the people who have a chance to be involved in a co-op development, whether it's providing the initial financing, whether it's building, whether it's a municipal counselor voting to put a piece of land into a co-op development, they don't just see units being built. They see homes being created in vibrant communities for people who reach out into the broader community and want to be part of something bigger than themselves. They see the economic and the social returns from investing in co-op housing. I want to introduce one more thing into our conversation. Land trusts have become a popular way to get co-ops built. How does that work? You know, we're so excited about the prospects for community land trusts. They're relatively new in Canada, but they've been around in the United States and Europe for some.

time. A land trust is just a non-profit enterprise form to acquire and hold land for the benefit of the community. So for our community land trust in BC, we're building new co-ops. We're buying co-ops that are owned perhaps by a pension fund, and we're securing those homes in perpetuity. So the land trust is really the steward of the asset and the engine for growth that we've always been missing in the co-op housing sector. And I think it's the key to this renaissance, and it's something that's going to make a difference in people's lives for generations to come. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the CMHC, says housing starts have to double to about 450,000 new units a year until 2030 to have enough affordable housing to meet projected

demand. Tom, do you think that co-ops builds are going to be more than a drop in that very, very needed bucket. We have to be. We have to be building out a more robust, a more muscular non-market housing sector. If we're going to serve people who need affordable housing at incomes that have been so disconnected from market rents that it makes just living day-to-day a struggle for the ordinary person, co-ops are going to have to be a material solution, part of that solution. And in fact, I think it's probably a conservative estimate that you've heard from CMA. We need many, many more homes. Okay, so when I talk to you in five years again, Tom, what kind of present tense then, what kind of future are you hoping for co-op housing in our country?

I'm hoping it'll be tougher to get a hold to me in five years because I'll be so busy going to the next ribbon cutting to open the new co-ops up and down the street. Appreciate your time so much. Thanks, Tom. My pleasure. Tom Armstrong is the CEO of the Cooperative Housing Federation of British Columbia. to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca slash podcasts.