Evolving Housing Conditions in Canada's Census Metropolitan Areas, 1991-2001

Executive Summary

Housing anchors quality of life by enabling its occupants to participate fully in society. Cities, to prosper and grow, need good housing. This report and a companion document of appendix tables paint a statistical picture of housing trends and conditions in Canada's census metropolitan areas (CMAs). Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation undertook to produce the report with Statistics Canada for the Cities Secretariat of the Privy Council Office. It discusses the following points:

Demographic and housing market trends, 1990-2003
Evolution of housing conditions in CMAs, 1991-2001
Core housing need in CMAs, 1991-2001
Households at high risk of housing need
The distribution of housing need within CMAs

Demographic and housing market trends, 1990-2003

• In the late 1990s, population growth rates and components of growth differed widely by CMA. CMAs with relatively high growth, most of them in Ontario and Alberta, gained population through migration.

• Household growth in the 1990s was concentrated in urban centres in British Columbia, Ontario, and Alberta, diminishing in British Columbia in the second half of the decade and accelerating in Alberta.

• During the 1990s, couples with children declined as a proportion of all households in every CMA, while the share of one-person households and lone-parent households generally rose.

• In the late 1990s, the number of new homes built per capita was high in Census Metropolitan Areas with high rates of household growth. These CMAs were primarily in Alberta and Southern Ontario.

• After dropping in the early 1990s, the pace of housing construction increased in most CMAs in the second half of the decade as economic conditions improved.

• The rate of homeownership increased throughout the 1991-2001 period in almost all CMAs. A variety of factors, including accelerating income growth and low and declining mortgage rates, prompted stronger increases between 1996 and 2001 than earlier in the decade.

• As housing demand increased in the late 1990s, supply conditions tightened in most Census Metropolitan Areas. Rental vacancy rates fell, sales-to-listings ratios rose, and new home inventories shrank.

• With demand rising and markets tightening, housing prices and rents increased more rapidly from 1996 to 2003 than in the first half of the 1990s.

• Income growth accelerated in the late 1990s as the economy strengthened. In contrast to the early 1990s, household incomes increased more rapidly than shelter costs.

• As a result of the acceleration in income growth in the late 1990s and declining mortgage rates, households spent proportionately less of their before-tax incomes on shelter in 2001 than in 1996.

Evolution of housing conditions in CMAs, 1991-2001

• Inadequate housing (housing in need of major repairs) and unsuitable (crowded) housing are both rare.

• Housing that is not affordable is much more common than inadequate or unsuitable housing.

• Almost 70 percent of households in CMAs live in acceptable housing (housing that is in adequate condition, of suitable size, and affordable).

• Housing conditions in CMAs improved between 1996 and 2001 after deteriorating earlier in the decade.

Core housing need in CMAs, 1991-2001

• Improvements in housing conditions from 1996 to 2001 did not completely offset the deterioration experienced between 1991 and 1996, leaving one in six CMA households in core housing need in 2001.

• The level of core housing need in 2001 and changes from 1991 to 2001 differed significantly from CMA to CMA.

• The main hurdle for households in need, especially renters, is finding affordable housing.

• Renters are much more likely to be in core housing need than owners.

Households at high risk of housing need

• Aboriginal households, particularly renters, have high rates of housing need.

• The incidence of housing need is high for two groups of non-Aboriginal renters-lone-parent households and people who live alone.

• Within these two groups, it is seniors and women who are at high risk of being in core housing need.

• The incidence of core housing need is high among recent immigrant households, especially renters.

The distribution of housing need within CMAs

• Highest-need census tracts account for a disproportionate share of housing need: in 2001, the number of households in need in these tracts was twice the number that would have resulted from an even division of need across highest-need and other neighbourhoods.¹

• Although frequently found near the centre of CMAs, highest-need neighbourhoods exhibit a variety of spatial patterns with no single one dominating.

• Highest-need neighbourhoods differ from other neighbourhoods along a variety of demographic, economic, and physical dimensions.

• The spatial concentrations of Aboriginal households in housing need and of recent immigrant households in housing need are more pronounced than the general concentration of core housing need.

PLEASE NOTE: During verification of ongoing research, CMHC found that some households had been misclassified when Statistics Canada applied core housing need to both the 1996 and 2001 Censuses. Find out more...

• Full report (without the Revision of 1996 and 2001 Core Housing Need Estimates)