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<div style="margin-top:5pt;margin-bottom:5pt;"><font face="Georgia" size="6" color="#191919"><span style="font-size:24pt;">Profit mongers should have no home in Canada’s housing market</span></font></div>
<div><font face="Helvetica" color="#191919"><span style="text-transform:uppercase;">LEILANI FARHA AND JULIETA PERUCCA</span></font></div>
<div><font face="Helvetica" color="#595959"><span style="text-transform:uppercase;">CONTRIBUTED TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL</span></font></div>
<div><font face="Helvetica" color="#595959"><span style="text-transform:uppercase;">PUBLISHED JUNE 16, 2021<br>
</span></font></div>
<div style="margin-bottom:10pt;"><a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/amp/opinion/article-profit-mongers-should-have-no-home-in-canadas-housing-market/?__twitter_impression=true"><font color="#0563C1"><u>https://www.theglobeandmail.com/amp/opinion/article-profit-mongers-should-have-no-home-in-canadas-housing-market/?__twitter_impression=true</u></font></a></div>
<div style="margin-top:5pt;margin-bottom:5pt;"><font face="Georgia" size="2" color="#191919"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Leilani Farha is a former UN special rapporteur on the right to housing and the global director of the Shift. Julieta Perucca is the deputy
director of the Shift.</span></font></div>
<div style="margin-top:5pt;margin-bottom:5pt;"><font face="Georgia" size="2" color="#191919"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> ----------------------------------------------------------------------</span></font></div>
<div style="margin-top:5pt;margin-bottom:5pt;"><font face="Georgia" size="2" color="#191919"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Core Development Group Ltd. <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-condo-developer-to-buy-1-billion-worth-of-single-family-houses-in/"><u>announced</u></a> this
week that it intends to spend $1-billion over the next five years to purchase thousands of single-family homes across Ontario, Quebec, Atlantic Canada and British Columbia and offer them as rentals. The Toronto-based company says it is looking to fill what
it sees as a hole in the housing market, taking advantage of red-hot real-estate prices that have put homes beyond average family budgets, the competitive rental market and new work-from-home needs.</span></font></div>
<div style="margin-top:5pt;margin-bottom:5pt;"><font face="Georgia" size="2" color="#191919"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Core intends to convert the properties into multiunit dwellings by adding basement apartments. The company asserts this will create 4,000
affordable rental units for families, immigrants and residents who want more space but cannot afford to buy a home.</span></font></div>
<div style="margin-bottom:10pt;"><font face="Georgia" size="4" color="#191919"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;">Governments are obliged to ensure that companies such as Core concretely contribute to <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/N-11.2/FullText.html"><u>national
commitments to the human right to housing</u></a>, which entails ending homelessness, prohibiting evictions into homelessness and ensuring access to adequate, affordable housing for the <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/201002/dq201002a-eng.htm"><font color="#D50202"><u>1.6
million households in core housing need</u></font></a>.</span></font></div>
<div style="margin-bottom:10pt;"><font face="Georgia" size="4" color="#191919"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;">At the end of the day, Core’s plan is yet more proof that Canada’s housing landscape is becoming increasingly dominated by corporate landlords and
financial actors seeking only to extract phenomenal returns on investment. It’s hard to view this as a good thing.</span></font></div>
<div style="margin-bottom:10pt;"><font face="Georgia" size="4" color="#191919"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;">This <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Housing/Pages/FinancializationHousing.aspx"><u>financialization of housing</u></a> has not had positive
results for tenants or marginalized communities here or elsewhere. In Canada, individual landlords with small to medium-sized holdings are increasingly being rivalled by <a href="https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/june-2021/the-rise-of-financial-landlords-has-turned-rental-apartments-into-a-vehicle-for-profit/"><u>real-estate
investment trusts (REITs),</u></a> which raise rents and file evictions at disproportionately higher rates. In the United States, single-family homes have fallen prey to the interests of private-equity investors, who scoop up foreclosed homes at low prices
and then, after minor renovations, charge steep rents, turning a class of homeowners into beleaguered renters. The pandemic and its resulting economic downturn have demonstrated the importance of flexibility and compassion for tenants; this is hard to attain
with faceless corporate landlords.</span></font></div>
<div style="margin-bottom:10pt;"><font face="Georgia" size="4" color="#191919"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;">The alarm bells have long been ringing loud and clear. Reports have been issued, documentaries screened, media attention garnered, letters to politicians
written. It’s time for Canada’s governments to decide on their vision for the housing sector: Will it be one guided by the interests and profit-making whims of investors and developers, or one that concretely embraces and acts on the knowledge that access to
adequate, affordable housing is the key to greater equality and a happier society?</span></font></div>
<div style="margin-bottom:10pt;">And see<br>
<a href="https://www.make-the-shift.org/protection-for-those-living-in-homelessness/"><font color="#0563C1"><b><u>https://www.make-the-shift.org/protection-for-those-living-in-homelessness/</u></b></font></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom:10pt;"><a href="https://www.make-the-shift.org/cristian-buenos-aires-argentina/"><font color="#0563C1"><u>Cristian. Buenos Aires, Argentina. – The Shift #RIGHT2HOUSING (make-the-shift.org)</u></font></a></div>
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