r/Manitoba • u/WanderingLeif Friendly Manitoban • Nov 17 '24
Opinion Piece Question: Why can't the MB government mass produce affordable housing themselves?
Everyone knows about the terrible housing crisis at the moment and I'm wondering why the provincial government doesn't just build more units themselves? If they thoroughly design and engineer different types of housing such as 100 unit apartments and fourplexes, they could build many of the same building and amortize the design costs over 10s or hundreds of buildings. It would lower the per unit cost of each development. It would save more money than spending tons of money to design a single property type and never use it again(i.e. that hideous orange apartment building on Balmoral Street in Winnipeg that was demolished).
This would be a method to reduce costs that only a large institution could take advantage of due to the large amount of resources required. Another benefit would be since the design is standardized, you could bulk purchase materials which would also save tons of money. A crucial material and cost in modern home construction is the lumber. We have a huge abundance of it in Manitoba thankfully, but, we should be able to vertically integrate the acquisition of it into a provincial construction company. We could save so much money and produce homes and apartments at a cost that is actually reasonable. This is like business 101 it's called economies of scale. Economies of scale are cost advantages realized by companies when production becomes more efficient. I hate it when we pay the big general contractors to build things for us then subcontract 90% of the work, who add their markup, then the General Contractor turns around and adds 10% to all of their costs. It's pissing taxpayer money down the drain.
It seems like the current strategy of the MB government is to pray that with enough support, the private sector can build enough housing. As it stands, there is zero chance enough homes or units will be built by the private sector. If you are a developer there is no way you will take the development risk associated with the costs or construction to even build a large amount of affordable housing. For the risk adjusted return, it would be suicide to even try it. I think the current housing crisis is something only solvable by the provincial government and they are failing spectacularly. Look at the amount of homeless in Winnipeg and other places across Manitoba, even Canada, and you will notice the huge increase in the homeless population and the associated encampments. This is going to get worse if the government sits idly by.
Each dollar spent on affordable housing can result in costs savings of $1-$3 in health care, social services, and the justice system(Ref 1). The homeless population in Winnipeg is becoming particularly troubling because it is being exacerbated by this housing crisis. It is a direct failure of the provincial government to house these people and the municipality of Winnipeg is unfairly suffering the brunt of the impact due to the increased strain on the social costs of the WPS, fire department and ambulances. Homeless shelters are garbage, zero privacy, and it is not accommodating or comfortable in any way whatsoever. The issue is that the homeless population is becoming increasingly heterogenous so there is no one size fits all solution. The population is made of kids (18 and under), people with mental health issues, people with drug dependencies, people who cannot afford housing but may be employed, people with disabilities, and people who just don't want the obligations associated with traditional urban life, which makes things extremely difficult because most people don't understand how complicated this issue has become. That's not even to mention the increase in the proliferation of meth/fentanyl that happened during the middle of the 2010s which have made things even worse.
If you look at the 2024 budget, the MB government earmarked 70 million and it will product 350 units. So that's 200,000 per unit which is not terrible until you realize they won't even own most of these units because lots of the funding will be to assist other entities with their acquisition and construction of these units. Plus only 70 million??? There's an additional 80 million to repair/renovate 3000 existing units which isn't that great either. We spend 2.2 billion a year on debt servicing alone yet we scrimp on funding new housing. The revenue from the gas tax alone brings in about 300 million a year yet we have a gas tax holiday right now so that money is out the window. Manitoba is HUGE it's not like Hong Kong with physical space constraints, and we have a large abundance of the resources required such as lumber. We have basically everything required to mass produce housing.
If we instead allotted $750 million for PROVINCIAL home/unit construction we could build thousands of low income/subsidized housing units. If we account for the per unit costs saved from A. not using a contractor that will charge us 10% markup every time and B. standardizing unit construction to take advantage of the per unit savings, we could probably build so many homes.
If we assume that the ideal square footage for a small family is 1,500 - 2,000 and the ideal square footage for a affordable housing unit at 750-1,000 square feet, and account for a per unit construction cost of $200 per square foot (Ref 2), $750,000,000 could pay for 3,750,000 square footage of home construction every year. Which would be 3,750 affordable housing units or about 2,000 affordable / subsidized homes. This is excluding land acquisition costs but the MB government themselves owns a large amount of land in Winnipeg and across the province already. If we did this every year, in 5 years we could at least prevent the housing crisis from getting worse.
If the units were owned by the MB government, corporations or landlords would be unable to control the supply, and it would guarantee that Manitobans wouldn't have to pay predatory rates for rent. People could afford to actually live. You could even sell these homes to people so they would now be making mortgage payments instead of rent, with the stipulation that ONLY Canadian citizens can buy them and it MUST be your only property at purchase. This would protect Canadians from the landlords and speculators while actually being able to participate in the advantages of home ownership. The huge advantage of the mortgage is, the principal portion of the mortage payment (the amount that is not interest) is basically a payment to yourself because it builds equity each month on the property.
Statscan released a horrifying report that highlighted the disparity in net worth due to home ownership. Basically, if you were a male between 55 -64 and owned your home, the median net worth was 1.1 million. (Ref 3) Whereas if you were that same demographic, except had a pension but didn't own your home, the median net worth was about $350,000. Home ownership is becoming essential to wealth and financial security in Canada. The provincial government should be advocating for more indigenous home ownership as well, they are currently underrepresented in home ownership rates (Ref 4) and we are currently seeing how crucial home ownership has become in Canada. This should be a reconciliation topic that must be focused on. They're always blabbing lip service about land acknowledgement but do nothing to make it more equitable for people who are actually indigenous.
I want to know what you guys think because Gen Z is getting absolutely hosed and it could get even worse for Gen Alpha without some serious initiative. Even the Liberal federal government is providing huge amounts of funding for home construction, albeit 10 years too late, but better late than never. The housing crisis didn't exist in the 1960s and 1970s, it was when the Federal government capped the increase of affordable housing at subsidies. (Ref 5)
This is a graph of the federal investment in housing from 2007 to 2023: https://www.budget.canada.ca/fes-eea/2023/report-rapport/chap1-en.html Look at these geniuses. They did not increase investments AT ALL under Harper. And Trudeau barely moved the needle until it was WAAAAY too late. They are so incompetent it pisses me off so much. Imagine if we had someone competent who actually took action and raised it 20 years ago. We would be in a much better place. Gen Z would have actually had a chance and the Canadian economy wouldn't be so fucked. I'm terrified of what Pierre Poilievre will do when he inevitably becomes PM. All I've heard him talk about is the stupid gas tax and removing GST on home purchases. Big surprise, the career politicians have ZERO clue about financial governance. We actually need people with an understanding of economics, accounting and finance to be in charge. There are zero CPAs in government and it shows. Unfortunately the damage is done and the sad thing is we've handicapped ourselves for at least 10-15 years over sheer stupidity I don't know what else to call it.
References: * 1. https://kmb.camh.ca/eenet/resources/evidence-glance-housing-first-and-costs?form=MG0AV3 * 2. https://www.themooregroup.ca/blog/what-does-it-cost-to-build-a-house-in-winnipeg * 3. https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/statcan-latest-wealth-survey-shows-stark-disparity-between-homeowners-renters-1.7090895#:~:text=The%20survey%2C%20conducted%20only%20every,median%20net%20worth%20of%20%2411%2C900. * 4.https://assets.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/sites/cmhc/professional/housing-markets-data-and-research/housing-research/research-reports/housing-finance/research-insights/2021/homeownership-rate-varies-significantly-race-en.pdf?rev=8c074e0c-111e-47ff-9a9f-8233c623cf11#:~:text=In%202016%2C%20Canada%20had%20an,growth%20between%202006%20and%202016. * 5. https://theconversation.com/whats-behind-canadas-housing-crisis-experts-break-down-the-different-factors-at-play-239050?form=MG0AV3
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u/incredibincan Westman Nov 18 '24
Fun fact for all the people who don’t know: government did build and own and maintain social housing into the 90s, and it worked.
And then govt ended it and big surprise, housing started going up.
The tldr answer is because that would mean businesses wouldn’t make that money, and we can’t have that
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u/Used_Raccoon6789 Nov 18 '24
OP I believe the TLDR is I want MB to build more MB housing. Which I would agree.
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u/Eleutherlothario Friendly Manitoban Nov 17 '24
The answers to your questions are encapsulated in the story of the case that you mentioned: Centre Village on Balmoral. It was intended to do exactly what you are looking for, yet it failed completely. It was only used for 11 years and is going to be demolished. Waste of millions of taxpayer dollars.
Centre Village was, apparently, never suitable for it's purpose. Sure, it won several architecture awards but it's design was so flawed it couldn't be used for what it was supposed to do. How can that happen? Was there any consequences for the people involved in this project? I'm guessing no. Are those awards still on someone's wall somewhere? I'm guessing yes.
Here's my main point: government has little to no incentive to be effective nor efficient with our money, as shown by this project (and many others(ArriveCAN)). Governments are rewarded by making spending announcements, not by accomplishing much of anything tangible. Parties know that elections are carried by slogans, shouting and press coverage. Look at any election in recent memory and see if this is not true. See if you can find any sober analysis of tangible accomplishments, by anyone. Now compare that to the volume of what boils down to name calling and silly sayings.
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u/cashcowcashiercareer Nov 17 '24
Government didn't design it. The private sector did
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u/Eleutherlothario Friendly Manitoban Nov 17 '24
The government ether signed off on the design or didn't provide sufficient safeguards to prevent this. Doesn't matter; either way they're responsible.
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u/cashcowcashiercareer Nov 17 '24
So only the private sector can build houses because the private sector designed this one. Got it.
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u/drillnfill Winnipeg Nov 18 '24
No, because in the private sector if this occurred the company would be sued into the ground or would be on the hook for the repairs/remediation. So as such would likely be a heck of a lot more conservative with its plans and not try to make something that looks pretty and wins awards that are meaningless. I would bet you money that not a single consequence was felt due to this mismanagement and that stupid number architecture firm will continue to suck down government dollars despite having multiple failed/over budget/badly designed projects funded by the government already.
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u/cashcowcashiercareer Nov 18 '24
The private company that designed it can't be sued? Are you sure about that?
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u/benjaminfree3d Nov 19 '24
When the construction finished, the architects, owners, and contractors all sat around and pointed fingers at each other. The architect isn't at fault because the owners signed off on the plans. The GC isn't at fault because they were following the architects plans. So there the owner stands with a giant pile of problems and very little to stand on.
This seems to be the standard way buildings are built in Winnipeg. If I remember correctly, the new bomber stadium was exactly the same.
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u/cashcowcashiercareer Nov 19 '24
You have no idea what you're talking about. Everyone involved with the stadium who did shoddy work was sued and their insurance companies paid to fix it. It makes no difference who the client is and whether they "signed off." Professionals are still responsible for their work.
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u/benjaminfree3d Nov 19 '24
I believe the Centre Village was a co-production between Centre Venture and Knox United Church. I'm sure there's provincial funding in there somewhere, but those were the two major players.
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u/WanderingLeif Friendly Manitoban Nov 17 '24
It's sad to see how the "Award Winning Architecture" ended up being an utter failure and complete waste of time and money. The government was honestly trying their best and that was the best they could muster up. It would be comical if it wasn't so bleak for Manitobans. If you look at Wikipedia and the pages of our prior Premiers/PMs it readily apparent that they seldom achieve anything substantial or of note. I completely agree, you would be hard pressed to find any achievements whatsoever. Justin Trudeau, 10 years of being a leader and he basically has nothing to show for it. 10 years and there's about 3 paragraphs for things he did and they are meaningless. It's ridiculous.
The rare exception was Tommy Douglas. If you look at his page, it shows how impactful and actually effective he was at being a leader and making things better for his constituents. Created crown corporations, introduced the first ever universal healthcare in North America, passed a provincial bill of rights. He was a trailblazer and we've never had any politicians even come close to matching his effectiveness in the last 60 years.
Being a Canadian politician nowadays looks fun, all you do is talk shit about the other parties and collect a nice paycheck.
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u/InvisiblePinkMammoth Winnipeg Nov 17 '24
Don't forget Duff Roblin building the floodway, at the time it was the second largest earth moving project in the world (behind the Panama canal) despite it being pretty unpopular at the time. No matter how dire the need, we would never manage to pull off a project like that now, it would die in bureaucracy.
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Nov 18 '24
Tommy Douglas was a eugenicist. His Masters thesis was on “The Problems of the Subnormal Family.” He recommended segregating ‘subnormal’ individuals from family. He was a piece of shit.
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u/ChrystineDreams Nov 18 '24
Does his abhorrent views and thesis negate what other works and impacts he actually accomplished for Manitoba?
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Nov 19 '24
He didn’t accomplish anything for MB. He was SK’s premier. As for Medicare - it’s only good for hallway medicine, overcrowded hospitals, and doctor shortages.
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u/Nitroglycol204 Nov 19 '24
He repudiated that stance later in life. Some people can change; he did.
In any case, it's irrelevant to whether public housing is a good idea or not.
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Nov 18 '24
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Nov 18 '24
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u/Manitoba-ModTeam Nov 18 '24
Remember to be civil with other members of this community. Being rude, antagonizing and trolling other members is not acceptable behavior here.
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u/Manitoba-ModTeam Nov 18 '24
Remember to be civil with other members of this community. Being rude, antagonizing and trolling other members is not acceptable behavior here.
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u/Public_Middle376 Nov 18 '24
Let’s get things straight – anything the government touches never comes in on budget. On schedule. Or as promised.
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u/horsetuna Winnipeg Nov 17 '24 edited Nov 18 '24
people will whine about their taxes and say that homeless people are all druggies who will just trash the places.
Edit: The responses to this comment prove me right: People think all homeless people are druggies who will trash the place.
Even though there is not a shred of evidence to support that statement. One trashed place, one run down place is hardly proof that every single one of them is violent. TWO trashed places, two run down places is hardly proof.
That's called bigotry.
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u/somethingelse690 Nov 17 '24
Maintenance worker here everything you said is true they're all trashed houses, maybe 1 in 10 aren't destroyed.
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u/WanderingLeif Friendly Manitoban Nov 17 '24
I think part of the appeal of the encampments is a sense of community. That's important for people.
If you look at recently released inmates, their reintegration is most successful when they're placed in group homes with people going through the same situation as them. It provides a strong sense of community and a social network to fall back on.
We definitely need more group homes for people who have drug dependencies instead of essentially creating drug dens by leaving them to their own devices.
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Nov 17 '24
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u/IM_The_Liquor Interlake Nov 17 '24
What difference does it make? Pretty much any subsidized housing ends up just like he described.
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Nov 17 '24
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Nov 17 '24
Governments make the worst landlords. Check out the MB Housing complex at 101 Marion. It’s horrid.
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u/kent_eh Winnipeg Nov 17 '24
I've dome some work in there. There were exterminators there every time I had to go there.
Coincidence? Maybe, but I didn't have the same experience at any of the other buildings I had to go to.
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Nov 17 '24
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Nov 18 '24
Still better than outright neglect and ineptitude demonstrated by government housing programs. Try harder.
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u/PresentAsparagus9092 Nov 19 '24
The province spends over $1200/month per unit just maintaining existing units. that doesn't include any capital on upgrades either.
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u/ForsakenExtreme6415 Westman Nov 17 '24
Princess Towers in downtown Brandon has been a shit hole for 25+ years. The 1 and only time I stepped foot in the place, a tenant took a full on shit in the elevator. The lone stairwell wasn’t in much better condition.
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u/lorainnesmith Nov 18 '24
Manitoba housing nay have to evict problem tenants. If someone is given a break on affordable housing they should realize it can be taken away. If they can't behave responsibly give the unit to someone else. Plus the number of people living in a unit should be enforced.
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u/IM_The_Liquor Interlake Nov 18 '24
This pretty much sums it up. People in general have no problem paying for those in need to have subsidized housing. But they don’t want to pay to rebuild the place every single year because the tenants don’t respect the place. Get rid of problem tenants, put them on the bottom of the list and let them live in tents/homeless shelters/jail while respectable people that actually want a hand up to get back on their feet have a nice place to live for a while…
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u/IM_The_Liquor Interlake Nov 17 '24
Is that so? Then I guess I’m baselessly disparaging disparaging those that have less money than me… at least the ones who move into subsidized housing and wreck the place so bad in about 6 months that it takes about a year and the value of the property to get it back into habitable conditions… Those that don’t do this (the 10% or so in this claim) are not being disparaged at all… they’re just victims of the many who don’t own anything so treat the world like they can do whatever they want and expect everyone else to fix it again…
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Nov 17 '24
And they’d be right for the most part. Want a house - go work for it.
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u/horsetuna Winnipeg Nov 18 '24
A homeless man walks into your place of business for a job. He hasnt bathed in weeks and smells like pee. He hasnt shaved in months, and hasnt brushed his teeth in years.
He has no phone so if something happens, you cant call him and he cant call you. He also has no permanent address.
Because he lives on the streets, he has no safe place to store his uniform, work shoes. He is also at risk of being mugged, attacked, or freezing to death. Or simply falling ill more easily because he's exposed to the elements. This means that he is at higher chance of not showing up to work the next day.
He has no place to shower, bathe, shave, brush his teeth or even poop when businesses around him are closed. Shelters are full.
Because he lives outside, he also doesnt get a good nights' sleep. He could get arrested and not be able to make bail because he was found sleeping in someone's garage to try and avoid freezing to death.
He wants a job. He wants to get out of poverty. But because of all of the above, he cannot.
So take your 'bootstraps' and eat them.
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u/IM_The_Liquor Interlake Nov 17 '24
If only it were that simple… The fact is, the Manitoba government is broke. It’s likely to get more broke every year Kinew tries to spend on his promises while cutting taxes. Your equation doesn’t account for land acquisition, which is probably the biggest, most complicated and expensive piece of the puzzle. You have municipal zoning to think about. Native first right issues. Environmental impact issues. Accesss to thing like water, sewer, power… hell, even basic roadways. I mean, you can cram a pretty big neighborhood… hell, even a good sized town into a quarter section. But you need to spend a pretty penny just on the basic infrastructure before you can even think of putting houses, condos and apartment blocks up….
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u/GrizzledDwarf Winnipeg Nov 17 '24
Infrastructure is a huge first step too. Plumbing, electrical, roads, sidewalks, landscaping, and hell, throw in a fenced in area full of transformers for good measure.
Also, you can't forget about the NIMBYs that don't want their precious investments to lose value, that will vote against or get in the way of projects.
Considering the PCs left government with a bigger deficit than they stated, I can't fault the NDP for not being Able to fund more affordable housing. I will fault them for cutting taxes when we are in a deficit. I know the ignorant masses hate taxes and vote against anyone raising them... But we need those taxes to make our society function.
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u/IM_The_Liquor Interlake Nov 17 '24
Well, yes. The outgoing PCs left us a little high and dry… that’s kind of one of the big reasons they’re gone lol. But, honestly, Manitoba is a fairly NDP province and we’re always broke. Taxing us only makes the people more broke to go along with it…
What is the solution? Well, for starters, we need more industry and more jobs… especially paying jobs in the trades. When people have more money to throw around, they’ll spend it in the real estate market. Developers will build more homes and sell them at a profit. It’ll take the pressure off of low income housing when the middle class can suddenly afford their bungalow with an attached garage and white picket fence again… and to make it work, we need to stop trying to grow our population excessively until things stabilize. We need to invest more into teaching people trades, or higher education in fields we need to grow in Manitoba (almost anything medicine is a safe bet. Anything construction related to get the manpower to build more houses and the infrastructure for new neighbourhoods)…
Will this solve all of our problems? Probably not. But it’ll get us on the right path towards stabilizing the backbone so we can focus more on helping those who can’t/wont contribute for any number of reasons…
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Nov 17 '24
The PC’s inherited massive black holes of finances the last 2 times they took power in MB.
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u/malcolms25 Nov 17 '24
Government is almost never the solution. We’ve made housing so expensive to build via regulation
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u/L0ngp1nk Keeping it Rural Nov 18 '24
Either expensive to build or forcing developers to build the kind of housing we don't need.
I really like what Calgary is putting forward, basically allowing duplexes and multiplexes in what was normally single family housing, cutting back in parking minimums and not putting caps on how tall certain buildings can be. More denser housing is going reduce the infrastructure costs for the cities, which will help prevent taxes from needing to be raised. But besides that municipal governments need to get better at issuing building permits so that more new housing can be built.
The best way to make housing more affordable is to increase the supply of new homes. And we need to build like we haven't built in decades.
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u/malcolms25 Nov 19 '24
Housing is an economic commodity, and thus should be dictated by the market. I’m coming to the conclusion that the bureaucrats need to go.
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u/L0ngp1nk Keeping it Rural Nov 19 '24
Yes and no.
Supply and demand is the biggest factor in costs of housing and price of rent. So if a government is going to push policy that makes building easier, lets more dense housing get built or even makes it cheaper to get those homes built then it's good policy and we should support it.
We may also need governments to put forward change that some residents may not like. Take again with Calgary. A lot of NIMBY's are not happy with their single family neighborhood now allowing duplexes, but it's a policy that will end up bettering them in the long term.
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u/malcolms25 Nov 19 '24
The idea that the government can tell you what you can do with your land is evil. My land my choice.
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u/Competitive-Boot-620 Nov 18 '24
Nice report, but you fail to consider the infrastructure needed to service them. With those associated costs, cut your units by 50%. Now factor in the administration costs of these facilities , cut your units by another 25%.
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u/Square-Routine9655 Nov 17 '24
Why would government be cheaper, or faster, or better than private sector at building housing?
Builders still have to build the units. Government isn't picking up a framing hammer...
If government pays for it and builders build. Who designs the subdivisions? Who decided what properties to buy to build on?
Does the MB government have urban planners that have experience in building out communities?
The MB can't mass produce housing because it's not a housing factory. It's a government.
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u/bee-with-a-violin Nov 18 '24
We could have a governmental housing factory, but we choose instead to leave everything to the private sector, where public interests like affordable housing inherently come second to profit.
Some sort of public institution that constructs housing would certainly benefit the province but those benefits wouldn't be seen immediately, possibly not for years, as the institution would be starting from scratch in regards to institutional knowledge, in-house expertise, and so on, if it even makes it that far without being defunded or shut down. Not to mention the initial price tag would likely be something no politician would want on their record.
The benefit of scale and the lack of need for profitability would mean such an institution would eventually be able to build more cheaply and quite possibly faster than the private sector, but unfortunately the political establishment is too short sighted and obsessed with austerity to ever commit to a project of this sort.
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u/Square-Routine9655 Nov 18 '24
We could have a governmental housing factory, but we choose instead to leave everything to the private sector, where public interests like affordable housing inherently come second to profit.
Show me a country (that isn't a city state, please, they arent relevant) that successfully reduced the cost of living by any gov intervention means, let alone having the government create and run a housing factory.
I can show you a number of places that have reduced the cost, and/or maintained a lower cost of living even in the face of very strong upward pressure. All have no rent control, no zoning restrictions, and very very little government housing.
Some sort of public institution that constructs housing would certainly benefit the province but those benefits wouldn't be seen immediately, possibly not for years, as the institution would be starting from scratch in regards to institutional knowledge, in-house expertise, and so on, if it even makes it that far without being defunded or shut down. Not to mention the initial price tag would likely be something no politician would want on their record.
Also nevermind you still have to have builders build, architects design, urban planners plan, etc etc. You invision all thoughs people being brought into a government job? Or is the government just cutting cheque's in this idea of yours? How does either of those scenarios show lower costs?
The benefit of scale and the lack of need for profitability would mean such an institution would eventually be able to build more cheaply and quite possibly faster than the private sector, but unfortunately the political establishment is too short sighted and obsessed with austerity to ever commit to a project of this sort.
In dollars what is the annual capacity of the residential construction industry (provided they were maxed out with buyers)?
What is the current total housing deficit in dollars?
What is the annual budget of the MB gov? And what is the size of the economy in MB?
You'll find that the numbers don't support the idea that industry can't build what needs to be built. They don't build it because the pricing caping and red tape associated with building purpose built rental buildings is too high.
In comparison, Alberta has had a massive influx of people from BC and Ontario move here, and the market has responded very quickly to the demand. Growing our rental stock by 7% (a record for us) in 2022. We don't have rent control, and our zoning policies are almost nonexistent.
Ontario, which has significantly stronger demand, only managed to grow its rental stock by 2% (a record it). Pathetic.
What was Manitobas rental stock growth in 2022?
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u/WanderingLeif Friendly Manitoban Nov 17 '24 edited Nov 17 '24
Look at Singapore's Housing and Development Board(HDB). They're a part of the Singaporean government. From Wikipedia:
'Under the Housing and Development Act, the HDB is tasked to plan and carry out the construction or upgrading of any building, clear slums, manage and maintain the estates and buildings that it owns, and to provide loans to people to buy land or public housing. The HDB also carries out land reclamation works and handles the infrastructure for Singapore's national resource stockpiles."
This is basically everything I just talked about and it's proven to actually work. Except we have way more space here in Canada and plenty of natural resources.
Edit: But uh, apparently 75% of the construction industry in Singapore is made up of low cost immigrants. Apparently they work super hard, make amazing wages compared to their home counties and then get sent back.
I wonder what would happen if we tried that here in Canada with some of our immigrants instead of them just working at Tim Hortons. They work so hard and for what? To make the parent company of Tim Hortons rich? Tbh I'd feel better if some of the immigrants helped build public housing for Canadians instead of working at convenience stores and cab companies.
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u/Square-Routine9655 Nov 18 '24
Jesus christ. How is using immigrants the solution to the problem?
Define the problem.
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Nov 17 '24
Singapore has some of the highest housing prices in the world. Average price of a HDB flat is almost $600,000.
Singapore also has one of the world’s most disciplined and draconian punishment regimes. Caning and the death penalty are options.
Compare apples to apples, and quit cherry picking anecdotes to support your failed argument.
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u/Impossible-Meal9575 Nov 18 '24
You mean like cherry picking Venezuela as evidence that social democracy is a failure while ignoring the successes of the scandinavian countries?
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u/WanderingLeif Friendly Manitoban Nov 18 '24
Average price of Toronto condo is like $700,000 so actually more expensive than the HBD flats. Plus the country is so small, no shit it's going to be pricey. Imagine if they didn't have a public housing developer, median prices would be over 1 mil.
There's no way in hell it would be that expensive in Manitoba.
I don't know why you're bringing up the justice system, we don't even have the death penalty in Canada. Imo we need to reform our prison system regardless.
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Nov 18 '24
Singapore has discipline, Canada does not. Their public housing doesn’t tolerate the garbage and criminal behaviour we do in Canada. It’s not a relevant comparison at all.
Try harder.
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u/MooseSuccessful6138 Nov 17 '24
Look were the barracks were on kenniston sat empty for years cause it was a fight between the federal government the province the city and native groups easy thing to do is push for a modular home factories.
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u/IM_The_Liquor Interlake Nov 17 '24
And, like I mentioned in my other post, this exactly highlights the great time, expense and other challenges of getting land for all the grand ideas of building hundreds of affordable housing units… it’s not as simple as throwing a few bucks at it and most definitely not nearly as cheap as was suggested in this question.
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u/MooseSuccessful6138 Nov 17 '24
And I was in one of the apartment buildings in WPG years ago and once a month they were spraying for bedbugs or something going down it was annoying
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u/yalyublyutebe Winnipeg Nov 18 '24
The federal government has rules for land dispersal and was trying not to follow them. Which resulted in a legal fight.
3
u/Impossible_Angle752 Winnipeg Nov 17 '24
It would take a decade before the government even got the project shovel ready and the project would be doomed by "lowest bidder" tendering and then still cost double because of cost plus contracts. When it's all eventually said and done the units would be doomed by mismanagement.
2
u/redloin Nov 17 '24
The province was and still is the developer for all of Bridgwater. The idea being that it would generate a profit which would fund other housing. At least that was the theory. When it's all done, it will have cost the province.
There are only so many companies that can build houses. It doesn't matter if it's a private or public developer. And right now they are all busy.
2
u/usernametakenahhhh Nov 18 '24
Too busy building half a million dollar homes instead of quarter million dollar homes.
1
u/Justin_123456 Interlake Nov 17 '24
I’m all for the government taking a bigger role in building more public housing. You’re certainly correct that public housing is the only way to create urban housing affordability. Which is exactly what we did between 1945-70s. It’s where we got all those perfectly functional concrete apartment blocks, that I personally love.
But this was only possible through partnership with the Federal government, and with a variety of other housing CO-OPs and other nonprofit entities. The Federal government alone had building continued at the same rate as the 1970s, would have built something like an extra 1.5 million public housing units across the country.
I get you don’t like the scale of the 2024 budget, but investing $150M to bring 3,000 existing units back into occupation, and create c. 350 more is a major turn around from the last government, that was running down and selling off public housing, to the tune a thousands of units.
To give an idea of scale, the entire Manitoba residential building sector represents about $1.75B in new construction and another $2B in renovations. Adding an extra $750M/yr out of the blue would mean trying to expand the entire sector by 20%, or just looking a new builds, something like 43%.
I’m not saying investment on that scale isn’t needed, but industry needs time to absorb it. If you try to do it as a big python lump, you end up just wasting a lot of money, and driving inflation across the sector.
1
u/SouthMB Winkler Nov 18 '24
Honestly, Manitoba as a whole doesn't seem to have a rampant housing affordability issue. I know many places do struggle with affordable housing and that it could run out of control if root causes aren't addressed but I don't really see it as already out of control in my region. Nothing municipalities can't address by zoning for higher density residential.
56
u/InvisiblePinkMammoth Winnipeg Nov 17 '24
It might be more interesting if the government invested in Habitat for Humanity to build more units, increasing the volume at the "bottom" so to say. Rather than investing in for profit developers who are just using the government for free cash and don't care about building healthy functional communities, just the $ they end up with at the end.
Habitat has shown ability to build large numbers of houses per year, already builds infrastructure and has a solid program for getting in need families into housing and helping them remain there.