I+T Council takes initiative to fix housing crisis

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I+T Council takes initiative to fix housing crisis

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The blame game is often used to figure out how to build millions of new homes in Ontario and across the country.

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Caught in the middle are developers on one side, government on the other, and hard-working Canadian consumers.

Homelessness isn't just a problem, it's a pending disaster, says R-LABS Canada Inc., which has developed a venture process aimed at helping entrepreneurs and corporations identify real problems. Founder and CEO George Karras. real estate sector and ensure significant change.

“Let's be clear, real estate and housing is something governments, industry and consumers are all in together. If you look carefully, when we are all together, no one is in charge. And it's creating this problem-rich environment, with its many complex and interrelated sets of problems, that many people here and around the world are calling a crisis.”

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Karras made the comments at an event in Toronto last year marking the release of the Industrial Innovation Agenda (IIA) for 2024, developed by a group called the Industrial Innovation + Transformation Council (I+T Council).

Convened by R-LABS and comprised of a number of organizations from the home building and real estate sectors, its mandate is to help address the many housing challenges facing the country.

To that end, the agenda, according to the release, “identifies the most pressing issues facing Canada's real estate sector and the key barriers stifling innovative solutions. Housing affordability, housing supply and climate resilience are among the top priorities in the IAA.

“The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) has stated that 5.11 million homes will need to be built between 2022 and 2030 to restore affordability in the Canadian housing market. To put that into perspective, Canada has never built more than two million homes in eight years.”

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The IIA recommends immediate action for Canada's real estate sector in five key areas, and for each it states the following:
• Leadership and Institutions: A culture of risk-taking in Canadian institutions, including government, non-profit organizations or the private sector, and lack of readiness to take leadership in promoting innovation in Canada.
• Affordability and Supply: Address Canada's housing supply challenge and address the high costs and underperformance that lead to lack of affordability.
• Climate Resilience and Low Carbon: Reduce the carbon footprint of Canadian real estate to ensure Canadian real estate can withstand extreme weather events and meet Canada's 2030 climate goals.
• Optimization: Canada's existing building stock is not optimally utilized due to factors such as lack of relocation options and flexibility to convert one building use to another.
• Capital, labor and supporting infrastructure: Ensuring that firms have the essential building blocks for success.
Members of the I+T board are convinced of the need for new forms of housing development action, and include Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TREBB) CEO John DiMichele, who said the high cost of housing is a constant challenge for individuals. and families.

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“Residential buildings, including apartment buildings, single-family houses, complexes, etc. “We need to adopt new ways of building homes, such as modular home construction, to scale,” says DiMichele. “However, there is bureaucracy, building code complexity and municipal politics that hinder modular housing.”

Michael Brooks, CEO of the Canadian Real Estate Association, a chain of commercial real estate companies, says “outdated practices of the construction sector provide an opportunity for residential redevelopment.”

“By implementing innovative technology and automation, we can solve the problems affecting the sector, including low productivity, costly delays and uncertain deadlines. By introducing innovative technologies, we can reshape the workforce and accelerate the construction process. The sector needs to focus on the skills and capabilities to adopt new technologies.”

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Karras said CMHC helped identify the issue last fall with a report outlining housing needs. A different approach to the housing shortage is needed to achieve affordability and 3.5 million more homes need to be built by 2030, the report says.

There are three logical responses to this: “The first is denial. Let's hope interest rates go down and things get back to normal. Hope is a wonderful virtue; hope is not a strategy.

“The second answer is guilt. It's easy, blame the problem on someone else. Guilt is a terrible and, unfortunately, wrong choice that many people make.”

The third and most logical answer, Karras said, is to figure out how to solve the problem through innovative thinking.
“Our board encourages all stakeholders to move away from conventional thinking and embrace innovation,” he said.

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