“Oh, England is a pleasant place for them that’s rich and high, but England is a cruel place for such poor folks as I…” There was a time when it was much less expensive to live in Toronto as some candidates for mayor in the upcoming election like to remind us. Olivia Chow remembers that when she was a young girl her mother was able to pay the rent and feed her family on “her little salary working as a hotel maid”. Times were simpler then. Everything cost less. Food, rent, transit, and entertainment. Four TTC tickets (yes, there were tickets) cost $1. A local postage stamp cost 15 cents. On a factory worker’s salary, one could leave the supermarket with multiple bags of groceries. And a small bungalow could be purchased for as little as (or under) $25,000. That house would now be worth close to (or more than) $1 million. We are hearing a lot these days about housing and how unaffordable it has become. That there are so many people unable to get into the housing market has become a major political talking point with a lot of blame going around. Our federal government, for example, has decided that foreigners purchasing homes in Canada is a problem, so a ban of two years has been imposed on such purchases. At the same time, the same government has announced that it would allow close to half-million immigrants into the country for each of the next five years. That’s two-and-a-half million people – many of them coming to Toronto – who would be looking for housing, jobs and other services. The government isn’t in the habit of letting in the poorest and neediest so we should expect that a lot of those coming in would be professionals and people of means who would not only be competing for the better jobs but also looking to purchase a home, thus adding to the problems local prospective home purchasers are already facing. Depending on which country they are coming from, or their international experience, they would also see our real estate prices as a bargain. The problem is not the people who already own a home or two. The problem is that demand vastly outweighs the supply and would only get worse. There are not enough homes available for all who want to purchase one. And that is one reason for the increase in the cost of housing. Then there are all the taxes and fees the various levels of government add on. By the way, just as there are many people today who can’t afford the cost of a house and feel they would never be able to do so, when the cost was $25,000 there were many who also felt the same way. Now most would be able to purchase that house at that price on their credit card. Maybe, sometime in the future, $1 million would also seem a bargain as it does now in New York, London and some other major cities. Housing has always been sold – and promoted, both by politicians and people in finance – as the “biggest investment most people will make in their lifetime”. As the value of housing has increased, homeowners have been able to access credit to send their kids to college, help them get married, take expensive vacations and live a relatively comfortable life. Others have been able to leverage the value in their homes to purchase stocks and bonds – as investments. Some, on the other hand, chose to invest in real estate, even sacrificing some of the finer things in life in order to do so. For a lot of Canadians, especially new immigrants, real estate has been a ticket out of poverty. For politicians and social activists to single out or demonize people owning more than one property as the problem where affordable housing is concerned is unfortunate. It is also a distraction. It is the government’s role to provide affordable and social housing. Not the private sector. And not your neighbour. But that takes political will. And lots of money. The largest and most reliable source of revenue for the city is property taxes. When the candidates running for mayor promise not to raise taxes or to keep any increase at a minimum, they are promising to cut off access to funds they would need to fulfill their promises of more affordable and social housing, improved public transit, better public safety and all the other services and programs they are offering. These people want to get elected so they are prioritizing their political careers. Someone once said that ‘you don’t get elected promising to raise taxes’. Then when there isn’t enough money to fulfill their promises, they point their fingers at others. The increase in the price of real estate in the city doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Every four years, the municipality reassesses the value of real property in order to establish a tax rate based on its budgetary needs to fund its services and programs.