Der Bauhaus in Ontario ist ein Stillstand, sagt Wohnungsminister

Perhaps we ought to resume our 1940s-1970s policy of building profit-free housing, at a large scale, based on need rather than profitability.

We had a robust system of profit-free housing in Canada, peaking with roughly *one-quarter* of new housing units in the early 1970s being some form of profit-free or subsidized housing.

Mulroney gutted the funding, and, rather than rebuild the program, Chretien delivered the coup de grace. Our meagre profit-free housing programs today are a shadow of what they once were, and it’s more of a reflection of a *lack of national will* than a *lack of feasibility*.

It’s well-past time to resume viewing our housing in the same way that we view our roads, education, firefighting, and a bevy of public programs for societal needs that *aren’t* adequately-served by the vicssitudes of the market.

There’s no shortage of examples after which we could model a substantially-renewed public investment in profit-free housing programs: Singapore, Austria, the Fennoscandic countries and The Netherlands all do this better than us to a significant extent. We belonged on that list, once, and we could and should belong there again.