Our Crumbling Foundation: How We Solve Canada's Housing Crisis

by Gregor Craigie

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

An urgent and illuminating examination of the unrelenting housing crisis Canadians find ourselves facing, by Balsillie Prize finalist and CBC Radio host Gregor Craigie, Our Crumbling Foundation offers real-life solutions from around the world and hope for new housing innovation in the face of seemingly impossible obstacles.

Canada is experiencing a housing shortage. Although house prices in major Canadian cities appear to have topped out in early 2023, new housing isn’t coming onto the market quickly enough. Rising interest rates have only tightened the pressure on buyers, and renters, too, as rising mortgage rates cost landlords more, which are passed along to tenants in rent increases. Even with the recent federal budget commitment to bring more housing online by 2030, there will still be a shortfall of 3.5 million homes by 2030.

Gregor Craigie is a CBC journalist in Victoria, one of the highest-priced housing markets in the country. On his daily radio show On The Island he's been talking for over 15 years to local experts and to those across the country about housing. Craigie has travelled to many of the places he profiles in the book, and in his interviews with Canadians he presents the human face of the shortfall as he speaks with renters, owners and homeless people, exploring their varying predicaments and perspectives. He then shows, through comparable profiles of people across the globe, how other North American and international jurisdictions (Tokyo, Paris, Berlin, Helsinki, Singapore, Ireland, to name a few) are housing their citizens better, faster and with determination—solutions that could be put into practice here.

With passion, knowledge and vigour, Craigie explains how Canada reached this critical impasse and will convince those who may not yet recognize how badly our entire country is in need of change. Our Crumbling Foundation provides hope for finding our way out of the crisis by recommending a number of approaches at all levels of government. The prescription for how we’re going to house ourselves and do so equitably, requires not just a business solution, nor simply a social solution.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Canada, Urbanism, Economics, Audiobook, Urban Studies

320 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 5, 2024

Reviews

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I blazed through Our Crumbling Foundation: How We Solve Canada's Housing Crisis, and loved this book. I can only think of a couple of aspects in Canada’s housing shortage that weren’t addressed to my entire satisfaction, in this excellent essay.

One is greed. To be fair, this isn’t a psychological study. It’s not at heart a treatise on civic engagement – though this last angle is successfully exploited a few times over, in various, captivating ways, but more from the perspective of do-gooders than evil-doers or white-bread opportunists – nor is it a work touching on personal investments (and it’s no secret that for countless Canadian households, more liquid options are eschewed in portfolios in favour of real estate solutions, well past the point of a mere imbalance; there's also a question of financial illiteracy to all this).

This book does cover greed in mentioning that a small percentage of Airbnb owners may reap a huge portion of total annual profits in any given location, for instance, or that more anti-flipping measures could be enacted to help stabilize a hectic market, but greed, as part of human nature, is never deeply addressed. I live here, I’ve been reading on a housing crisis in the making for well over a decade, in fact almost two, and greed has always appeared part of the problem to me. People are greedy, they just are, and part of the current reality is that Canadians brought this on themselves by indulging in never-ending speculation and bidding wars. In the meanwhile, governments seem to have been more active nurturing and touting job creation (in construction, in brokering, etc.) and economic growth than consumer protection (surprise, surprise). Real estate associations controlled (and still do) both the market and the official statistics, with zero accountability, and zero transparency, seeing they’re not a public body but a business, and governments have been looking the other direction. Greed and shortsightedness, together, turned out to be a dangerous mix. Who knew?

Another aspect that I would gladly have read more about is the generational divide. Boomers have been blaming Millennials of various shortcomings, and vice versa, under the general topic of housing, and while this may not be the heart of the matter, I find it’s certainly an interesting side story to the whole housing fiasco. It seems almost funny that it didn’t much come up, in this book. Maybe part of the reason, just as with greed, is that there’s no easy fix to this, and conflicting interests may be coming into play for governments to frustrate part of their electorate over another. The scope of the contempt may also be too large, and not specific to housing alone; we do also see it in the workplace and elsewhere. I can think of endless reasons to avoid the topic and focus on harder, more story-relevant numbers, yet in my mind and outside of this book the ugly phenomenon is still part of the narrative, somehow.

(Not-so-fun fact: when the U.S. had its Great Recession in 2008-2009, which took a serious toll on American real estate, Canada never really followed suit, property values kept shooting up, and we’ve been bickering among ourselves ever since, up here.)

However, in so many ways, Our Crumbling Foundation: How We Solve Canada's Housing Crisis has kept me riveted. It also fixed a soft bias that I had against the whole let’s-build-more argument, which I thought was self-serving enough for some people, governments included; someone’s views in this essay aligned with mine, at some point, and in that early chapter and subsequent ones, the book has done a wonderful job of showing me exactly how and why, in helpful detail, the argument was actually valid, and more construction is in fact needed. Thanks for taking the time to explain that part so well, Gregor Craigie.

Also of special interest was the idea of removing from municipal governments their exclusive purview over zoning, in the interest of bypassing a whole array of issues, ranging from bureaucratic abuse on the one hand to NIMBY tendencies and systematic obstruction on the other. I would pay to get front-row seats to that spectacle, if this were ever to happen. This is a field and a set of dynamics I turn out to know quite well. How much I trust our provincial government to bring additional sense into this is another story, but the concept has potential. Maybe after a next round of elections, at least in Québec.

Read this for foreign perspectives and Canadian realities that smartly intersect, one chapter after the other, touching on affordability, availability, regulations, official incentives and disincentives, social dynamics, and more. Great book!

[Brayden Culligan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Would not recommend to anyone seeking answers to 'How We Solve Canada's Housing Crisis.'

While marketed as a deep dive into the root causes of the crisis, this book instead serves as a primer on global housing strategies and a collection of repetitive anecdotes, offering little insight into the unique challenges facing Canadian markets and institutions. Readers seeking thorough analysis and novel solutions should look elsewhere.

[Meika Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

All politicians and people in power re: housing should read this book. I thought this book was well researched and informative. I work in social services and am informed on the housing crisis in Ontario, however I learned a lot! I really like how George looked at the housing crisis from an international perspective, and their approaches. Ontario has adapted some approaches, such as modular housing, so it was interesting to read where it stemmed from (Ireland). I enjoyed reading about how utilizing technology can “help” the problem (ie. 3D printing). I also like how George highlighted the impacts that airbnbs and short term rentals have on housing as a bigger issue.

George suggested some practical ways to repair the situation, on a municipal, provincial and federal level. I appreciated that he didn’t just suggest to build more housing but also suggested “fixing” the loopholes and gaps in the policies.

To conclude, it was appreciated that George acknowledged that the housing crisis impacts all Canadians. It’s also just depressing how Canada is projected to have 3.5 million home deficient by 2030.

[Pelin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The majority of this book took us through case studies from different cities in Canada and few from around the world. Talking about people's serious housing struggles and some success stories to take inspo from. Overall 3.5 stars, a lot of the book eluded to a lack of housing in numbers being the biggest issues but I think there's a lot more than that. But I did really appreciate how recently this was written (2024). My top 10 takeaways are below:

1. When building and planning laws are not set at a national level (operates on three different levels of gov. in Canada) this causes redevelopment to lack funding, take years to simply approve proposals and leads to an overall lack of coordination in the system. The end result being a lack of decisive action on new home construction.
2. Invest invest invest in highly efficient transit systems. So people who live further from city center don't have to spend hours commuting.
3. Renovate and repurpose unused existing structures into housing: department stores, offices, parkades
4. Increase government policies and incentives for publicly funded social housing. This can include federal subsidies, increased tax breaks, low- interest loans to builders etc.
5. Protect existing affordable housing. Provincial governments can give local gov the first chance to purchase affordable rental apartments to prevent them from being renovated into expensive luxury rentals.
6. Put an end to single family zoning by changing local laws to allow for townhouses and multiplexes which can be built on the same lot as a single family home.
7. Tie annual federal funding for affordable housing to the respective immigration numbers for each province.
8. Build more housing dedicated to Indigenous nations as well as essential workers like nurses and firefighters so they can live with their communities and close to where they work (respectively).
9. Consider establishing rent control in between tenancies instead of just for the duration of tenancy.
10. Develop a housing first approach to ending homelessness: people struggling with serious addiction and mental illness cannot begin to heal without a safe space to call home.
A Finnish example of this is a 7-story concrete building with all wipeable surfaces. Residents are allowed to use drugs, equipped with round the clock social workers and security, clean syringes and needles and HIV testing on site. Residents are also taught life skills they might have missed like cooking, cleaning and finances. No limit on how long they choose to stay.

[Vanessa Valenzuela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written, well researched. Just b o r i n g!!! Maybe if I didn’t already have prior knowledge, this would be ground-breaking. But if you know anything about the Canadian housing market.. you’ll be bored

[Cat · Rating 3 out of 5]

A depressing read, at no fault of the author.

Contrary to the synopsis, Craigie offers more of a high level overview than a deep dive into the Canadian housing crisis and possible policy interventions; however, this is a very readable and accessible overview of the Canadian housing crisis that will make even the most apathetic feel betrayed by the current state of affairs.

The book is made up of a series of case studies and anecdotes. Each chapter is paired: the first highlights a housing issue in a Canadian municipality while the second offers a policy solution from an international example for replication.

[Phil Italiano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Craigie does a great job of providing a holistic view of what is actively contributing to our housing crisis here in Canada. It was incredible to see what kinds of things have as much an effect on housing as they do; things you wouldn’t consider without reading a book such as this. As a young professional, it was insightful to see how we’ve gotten to this point as a nation and how I need to modify my expectations when it comes to owning a home in the future. Also super interesting to learn about the housing industry in its physical and legislative forms.

What I liked most about the book was how it was structured: 1 chapter was usually 10 pages and every 2 chapters were designated for one particular issue that contributes to the crisis- 10 to present the issue and another 10 to present a solution for a total of roughly 20 pages per issue. For each, Craigie picks a certain Canadian city where the issue is most acute and provides input from residents, non-profit housing executives, politicans, professors, industry experts, homeless people, etc, who are actively living through the hardship caused by the selected issue. The subsequent 10 pages are then dedicated to another country who has faced the same issues but have found a solution or some form of buffer to help mitigate the struggles. All solutions are encouraged to be adopted by Canada in order to avoid further hardship in housing.

Overall, great read, highly recommend to everyone. 5/5

[NikNaz K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well researched and thorough book on housing within the Canadian context that weaves in global examples through dedicated chapters. Learned a lot about housing policies, interventions, and technologies and the broader implications of these approaches, for example, for essential workers, immigrants and refugees, and 2SLGBTQI+ and BIPOC people and communities. Appreciated learning more about discriminatory policies and practices that have led to many systemic and pervasive inequities that continue to grow.

Lots of food for thought.

The piecemeal nature of many recent interventions to address the housing crisis and failure to examine the unintended consequences of these interventions continue perpetuating inequities and amplifying the problem.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finished this in the tail-end of the year and it was one of my favourite reads of 2025! It shed light on a crisis I didn’t know much about prior to reading but always wondered how it came to be and how systemic in nature it was. Are there real, feasible solutions that exist?! I found the Canadian city case studies helpful to provide contextual familiarity before diving into other examples across the world.

Concluded post-read that a common set of housing issues prevail across global borders, but was encouraged by reading some case studies where proposed solutions have been impactful. The tone of the book felt sobering and realistic yet also hopeful. A very educational read for me

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Recommendations At The End Are Worth The Book Itself

Outstanding book.

Really, so much of this book was upsetting and angering, as I'm finding the crunch too, living in British Columbia.

Some truly amazing recommendations at the end of this book.

Recommended Reading
Similar books I highly recommend also checking out:
Wilful Blindness: How a Criminal Network of Narcos, Tycoons and CCP Agents Infiltrated the West
Other People's Money: Inside the Housing Crisis and the Demise of the Greatest Real Estate Deal Ever Made
Poor Housing: A Silent Crisis
Trade-Based Money Laundering: The Next Frontier in International Money Laundering Enforcement
Poverty, by America
Squeezed: Why Our Families Can't Afford America
...
...and the list could go on...
...

This book will make you furious, but it is so well written and researched. Craigie is such a good author. Highly recommended.

4.8/5

[Kayli Rusnak · Rating 5 out of 5]

well researched and written, I really enjoyed the audiobook and didn’t find it to be textbook-like with overwhelming information!

[Nikki M · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Canadian Housing Crisis has been topical for years in Vancouver and Toronto. In Calgary, property owners were just presented an average property assessment increase of 15% for the 2024 tax season so now housing is a hot topic in Calgary, which led me to look for answers and fully understand the issue.
The housing crisis is a pessimistic topic to read about but I recommend this book because Craigie presents the issue in a digestible format. Chapters flip between defining the issue with examples across Canada and then contrast with solutions implemented globally.
In an afterword, Craigie outlines a series of solutions but I believe these would only lessen this terrible economic and social problem Canadians face rather than solve the housing crisis. In my opinion, the supply issues present today may be beyond short term repair and actions taken now may not see substantial impact until 2030 or beyond.

[Carolyn Whitzman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I realize that I never updated my progress on this book. I read it. It is a good set of linked articles on Canada’s housing crisis and how we can do better. I’ve written a similar book and was asked by my publisher to read this book in order to respond to people who ask about it. We use similar examples and have a similar perspective. Craigie is an excellent journalist and I’ve been on his show. I take more of a systemic policy analysis perspective. It’s up to readers of both to say which book or books they find useful in understanding Canada’s housing crisis and how to fix it.

[Brenna ♡ · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars 🌟 Wow, I loved this. The impacts of our housing crisis, rental costs, and the major barriers to home ownership are all topics that I think and worry about on a daily basis! I learned so much from this book. It was full of facts and evidence based examples from other countries, the topics relate so much to my future and I pray for more affordable housing and no more homeless camps or people being forced to live in their vehicles.

'Appendix A - A list of repairs' shares all of the necessary impactful tactics that can be used to fix our housing crisis 🇨🇦

[Hieu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy to read book about housing issues in Canada and in different cities around the world. I appreciated as I didn’t really expect to find answers in how we can deal with the housing crisis but I liked reading about the personal accounts and what are some of the factors and conditions why we are in the situation we are in today. I do like the idea of a registered savings account for housing (ex. Singapore and similar to a registered education savings plan).

[David Mole · Rating 4 out of 5]

A truly sad account of the housing crisis gripping Canada. Between 2001-2021 the % price rise of an “average” single family home in Canada was…. 365%. Oh ya, % price rise of everything else - 43%. And we wonder why our brightest and best are leaving - nurses, doctors, engineers to name a few; gone. By 2030 we will be short 3.5 million homes, not that anyone could afford them anyways. Craigie’s forensic overview of housing despair in Canada is exceptional, as is his connection to “success stories” around the world, from Japan’s national emphasis and planning, to Oregon’s “cottage cluster” innovation. Although I found his final chapter on “solutions” extensive I feel there was one glaring miss in this book…. ACCOUNTABILITY. All of this was preventable but the hands were off the wheel as Canada has crashed and burned when it comes to housing. Interest rates were increased 7 x in 2022 while Bank of Canada employees got raises and the big 5 lending institutions/banks announced record profits… as more and more Canadians were locked out of housing. Imagine having a variable mortgage that year after going through a bidding war set up by Real Estates agents pitting income stream against income stream… who can over extend themselves the most? One of the most central roles of any government is to protect its people from harm… not only was this crisis preventable, more could and can be done for a citizenry who are drowning in a society too expensive to live in. A direct line can be drawn between this housing crisis and the tragic phenomena of deaths of despair throughout Canada… suicide, overdoses, major onset of mental illness. My vote… step one: hold a Canadian commission to investigate how this occurred and who is to blame and prosecute them. Step two: develop a sophisticated, three-tier plan to get us out of this nightmare… 1 to address homelessness, 2 to make housing achievable again for first time buyers and 3 build, build, build / access, access, access like they did in Japan and Paris.

A must read for every Canadian.

[Bita · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very human look at Canada’s housing crisis. I love that every chapter starts with a real story, which makes the scale of the problem feel more real and immediate. Craigie explains the big structural issues clearly: decades of lost social housing, restrictive zoning, speculation, and governments working at cross-purposes.

It’s a good overview of why the crisis exists, and the storytelling is honest and compassionate - a starting point indeed - an important book for anyone trying to understand why housing has become so hard to access in Canada, and what needs to change!

[Kelsey Horn · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

An interesting and quick read on some of the issues facing Canada and comparisons to what other countries have done instead! I appreciated that this was more of a storytelling book vs a strictly analytical analysis of the housing market and why it’s gotten so bad.

[Koji · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite like how the book delves into specific alternative policies from across the world, while making it really clear what the trade-offs involved are - no panaceas here. And as someone who's pored through a ton of housing discourse, of high- and low-quality, the research here is very solid and without errors. It's extremely fluid and readable and focused on individual stories in a way that betrays Craigie's journalist past.

[Princess Banana of Bananaland]

A book of vignettes into different housing strategies around the world. Lots of great ideas, but I think it'd be better paired with something more substantial or other points of view - I liked The Tenant Class by Ricardo Tranjan, which highlighted changes focused specifically on benefiting renters rather than landlords/developers.

[Willows in the Wind · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! The book's design is to look into housing situation in a city in Canada in each Chapter, followed by a similar city worldwide that tackled similar challenges in the next chapter. The author is a CBC journalist who also narrated the audio version of the book. His narration skill showcases his experience being on the radio, so it's very enjoyable. The pages are insightful, without extra fluff and wasted words. It's very readable; you can finish it fast as it has an organized flow. I did not really feel bored at any point listening to the book!

[Kerri D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and well researched book about Canadas housing crisis. He also investigates other countries that dont have a problem. He also has some solutions.

[Michelle Chan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned a lot and thus enjoyed it. I was hoping to also learn a bit more what an individual citizen like myself can do to help in addition to the governance and policy solutions shared.

[Moira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very current, very well researched. I liked the structure, with chapters alternating between international and national focus.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written, covering many and most of the key issues in the Canadian housing ecosystem, well researched chapters thematically and geographically broken out leveraging individuals and family narrative to bring macro policy to the human level.

[Derrick Simpson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really good book, and I was so glad to find one that focuses mainly on Canada (with lots of great international examples as well). The book is worth the read even just for the list of suggested policies at the end.

So many strategies and policies I had never heard of or thought that are profiled in the book. Should be required reading for Canadian politicians

[Emily Thomson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book sets up some great recommendations to attempt to tackle the housing crisis in Canada. Craigie provides in depth research and foundations to achieve housing solutions. Being a policy 'junkie' and MPA student, I found this book very interesting and a great read. All Canadians, especially young Canadians trying to buy houses should read this book. Some of the policy recommendations could truly work in Canada.

[Morgan Dykstra · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's predicted that Canada will have a deficit of 3.5 million homes by 2030. Gregor Cragie's "Our Crumbling Foundation: How we Solve Canada's Housing Crisis" offers a compelling exploration of Canada's current and looming housing crisis. Cragie navigates the intricate web of housing challenges that plague the nation, offering insightful personal stories and analyses and real world solutions implemented all over the world. This book serves an indispensable and easy to read guide for readers seeking a comprehensive understand the pressing issues at play. Will be recommending this book to everyone I know!

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is for anyone touched by the housing crisis and the results of homelessness. Balsillie Prize finalist and CBC Radio host Gregor Craigie, offers real-life solutions from well researched housing innovations from around the world, including Tokyo, Paris, Berlin, Helsinki, Singapore, Ireland. Even with the recent federal budget commitment to bring more housing online by 2030, there will still be a shortfall of 3.5 million homes by 2030. Policy makers, politicians and all Canadians should read this book and consider the possibilities presented.

[Effy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was going to be 2 stars because as a lot of people have said, a lot of anecdotes and similar sounding stories while hopping around the world’s cities. Where were the solutions?

He does have an appendix. At the end. Of 37 solutions.

I read them out to my family which are conservative and do not like government interference and they saw merit in about 1/3 of the solutions. I won’t spoil the solutions. But you can flip to the appendix and then search for the relevant chapter for more details.