Canada’s housing crisis cannot be solved with a “business-as-usual” approach—and yet, that is exactly the risk we face.
The federal government’s Build Canada Homes (BCH) initiative signals an important shift toward increasing housing supply. But without clear targets, meaningful affordability measures, and a gender-responsive lens, it risks reproducing the very inequities it aims to solve.
In our recent submission to the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development (HUMA), the Women’s National Housing and Homelessness Network (WNHHN) outlines what’s missing—and what must change to ensure housing policy actually works for those most impacted.
Housing need in Canada is not neutral—it is deeply shaped by gender.
Women and gender-diverse people face distinct and compounding barriers to housing, shaped by income inequality, caregiving responsibilities, experiences of violence, disability, and systemic racism. Yet current affordability frameworks often assume dual-income households and overlook the realities of single-parent families, survivors of violence, and those navigating hidden homelessness. This results in housing models that exist in theory but remain out of reach in practice.
To address this, WNHHN’s submission calls for four concrete actions to ensure Build Canada Homes delivers housing that is equitable, adequate, and accessible.
Recommendation 1: Develop and embed an enhanced Gender-Based Analysis (GBA+) Framework into Build Canada Homes, specifically rooted in Indigenous knowledge, and co-developed with individuals who have lived experience of homelessness and housing insecurity.
BCH must develop and embed an enhanced Gender-Based Analysis (GBA+) framework that is rooted in Indigenous knowledge and co-developed with people who have lived experience of homelessness and housing insecurity. This includes integrating lived expertise into program design, project selection, implementation, and evaluation, and ensuring that Indigenous data governance principles such as OCAP® are upheld. Without this, housing investments will continue to be designed without the insight of those most impacted, limiting their effectiveness and reinforcing existing inequities.
Recommendation 2: Align Build Canada Homes with a revitalized National Housing Strategy that affirms the human right to housing and uphold the government’s commitment to ending homelessness, as required under s. 5 of the National Housing Strategy Act.
BCH must be aligned with a revitalized National Housing Strategy that affirms the human right to housing and meets Canada’s obligations under the National Housing Strategy Act. This requires moving beyond vague definitions of affordability and establishing clear, enforceable standards. Housing should be defined as affordable only when it costs no more than 30% of household income and does not compromise the ability to meet basic needs. Deep affordability must be tied to income, ensuring access for those in core housing need. In addition, BCH must include clear targets, timelines, and accountability measures, including tracking homelessness, core housing need, evictions, and long-term changes in affordability across both market and non-market housing.
Recommendation 3: Build housing and retrofit existing structures to meet affordability needs and structural adequacy standards, especially for women and gender-diverse people experiencing housing loss and displacement due to climate change-related natural disasters and other environmental barriers impacting their health.
BCH must respond to the growing intersection between housing insecurity and climate change. Women and gender-diverse people are disproportionately impacted by displacement caused by wildfires, flooding, permafrost thaw, and other environmental conditions, while also facing greater barriers to relocation due to income constraints and caregiving responsibilities. BCH must ensure that new housing is not built in high-risk areas or is designed to withstand climate impacts, and that existing housing is retrofitted to improve safety and habitability. Access to safe drinking water and sanitation must also be treated as a core component of housing adequacy, particularly in First Nations communities where long-term advisories and infrastructure gaps continue to drive housing instability and health inequities.
Recommendation 4: Allocate 40% of affordable and deeply-affordable units for women and gender-diverse people through federal investments such as Build Canada Homes and the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
Finally, BCH must allocate at least 40% of affordable and deeply affordable housing to women and gender-diverse people. Current data shows that women represent a significant proportion of the visible homeless population, while hidden homelessness remains vastly undercounted. A 40% allocation reflects both the available evidence and the reality that existing systems fail to capture the full scale of gendered housing need. Without targeted allocations, those most impacted will continue to be excluded from new housing supply.
Increasing the number of housing units alone will not solve the housing crisis if those units are not accessible to the people who need them most. When affordability measures fail to reflect real incomes, when housing design overlooks caregiving and safety needs, and when policy ignores the structural drivers of homelessness, we risk reinforcing the very conditions we are trying to change.
Build Canada Homes presents a critical opportunity to shift course. By embedding gender equity, grounding investments in human rights, and centring lived expertise, the federal government can ensure that housing policy responds to the realities of those most impacted by housing precarity.
Because housing policy that works for women and gender-diverse people works better for everyone—and because the housing crisis will not end unless we design solutions that meet the scale and complexity of the need.