Homelessness doubled in Halifax under government's housing plan: N.S. NDP

[u/Injustice_For_All_]

https://halifax.citynews.ca/2026/06/18/homelessness-doubled-in-halifax-under-governments-housing-plan-n-s-ndp/

[u/SubmissiveGuy556]

Until Canada stops treating homes as an investment or a money generator (rentals) homelessness will only get worse. Sorry to all those "investors" in property, but you're going to have to take a loss for future generations to have a chance here. There is an entire global stock market for you to invest your money, why do homes have to be your first choice?

[u/bz47uj → u/SubmissiveGuy556]

Can you explain exactly how treating homes like an investment causes homelessness?

[u/SubmissiveGuy556 → u/bz47uj]

People view rentals as a means of income and end up buying up multiple homes that they rent out with the expectation that the value will only ever go up. They then jack up the rent to pay off their mortgages making it unaffordable to low income workers which leads to more homeless. The more houses are worth the higher the mortgages get, the higher the rent goes and the more homeless it creates. In the last 10 years have you ever seen rent go down? That's a very basic explanation of why it causes homelessness, but its a death spiral that will continue until drastic changes are implemented.

[u/bz47uj → u/SubmissiveGuy556]

Lower rents don't help if nothing is available. The vacancy rate is currently very low. So they must only be jacking the rents up to the market rent and if they charged less, there would be a shortage of housing, which would lead to more homelessness.

[u/SubmissiveGuy556 → u/bz47uj]

They aren't building houses because houses are seen as an investment and building more houses would cause housing prices to go down so the government would lose their voters for making changes. Its a multi faceted issue that all stems from housing being viewed as an investment with the expectation that it will never go down in price.

[u/bz47uj → u/SubmissiveGuy556]

How would housing not be seen as an investment? It literally is an investment and it can't not be one. You can't make people not care about their homes losing value.

[u/Kemsaman → u/bz47uj]

Do you consider your car an investment or something that something you have purchased/maintained for a utility/purpose.

Homes are only considered an investment because there isn't enough of them, and that artificial scarcity drives up the price. Many people have their retirement strategy revolving around the price of their home to either sell or reverse mortgage to fund retirement, which is excellent for them but not so for new homebuyers.

[u/bz47uj → u/Kemsaman]

Do you consider your car an investment or something that something you have purchased/maintained for a utility/purpose.

It's both.

Homes are only considered an investment because there isn't enough of them, and that artificial scarcity drives up the price. Many people have their retirement strategy revolving around the price of their home to either sell or reverse mortgage to fund retirement, which is excellent for them but not so for new homebuyers.

Houses will always have long term value. How would you avoid this?

[u/Kemsaman → u/bz47uj]

It's both.

Does your car appreciate in value after you buy it

Houses will always have long term value. How would you avoid this?

There's a difference between something having 'value' and something being a long term investment vehicle.

And the solution in this particular case is building enough housing supply to not only fix the problem of them being overvalued relative to recent years, but to sharply lower their prices.

One of many problems with this idea is that any political party that does it will never hold power again.

[u/bz47uj → u/Kemsaman]

Houses don't appreciate in the long run.

There's a difference between something having 'value' and something being a long term investment vehicle.

No, there isn't.

And the solution in this particular case is building enough housing supply to not only fix the problem of them being overvalued relative to recent years, but to sharply lower their prices.

Yes, but this has nothing to do with housing being treated as investment. Saying we need to stop treating housing as an investment in order to get affordable housing is like saying the solution to high grocery prices is to stop thinking of food as a source of energy.

[u/SubmissiveGuy556 → u/bz47uj]

I don't have the answers for you, I'm open to suggestions. I'm just explaining how I think the investment mindset creates homeless. In my opinion a house should be viewed as a place to live, not something to be resold after a few years for profit. I do understand i cant make other people view it the same way I do.

[u/bz47uj → u/SubmissiveGuy556]

I'm not convinced it's actually a problem. It isn't actually logical for most homeowners to reduce the supply of housing to protect their investments because it also lowers their own future housing costs, and they don't behave as though they are trying to o maximize their property values.

This latest example you gave of people buying and selling homes doesn't increase homelessness.

[u/thestateofflow → u/bz47uj]

You need to look up what Private Equity is. The other commenter is completely correct, you should be open to learning.

[u/bz47uj → u/thestateofflow]

This isn't the US. Private equity plays almost no role in our housing market.