Canada’s growing income inequality is causing increased housing insecurity and is, in turn, leading to growing health inequities, according to the Wellesley Institute, an independent policy and research institute based in Toronto.
One-in-four Canadian households have incomes below the fair housing income, according to a new calculation released today. That number rises to one-in-three households in Toronto.
Download the Wellesley Institute’s Backgrounder:
Income inequality, increased housing insecurity, and growing health inequities: an analysis of Statistics Canada’s income and housing census figures
“This disturbing trend underlines the urgent need for increased social investment in new affordable housing. The period from 2000 to 2005 was a time of strong growth in the Canadian economy,” says Michael Shapcott, Director of Community Engagement with the Wellesley Institute. “Yet the benefits of that growth didn’t flow equitably. Low, moderate and even middle-income households faced big increases in the cost of housing, food, energy and other necessities while, at the same time, their household income was stagnant or declining. Canadians caught in this income-cost squeeze are paying with increased illness and premature death.”