Housing affordability will inevitably dominate the political agenda as election debates intensify. For millions of Canadians, the question is whether they will ever be able to move from paying for housing to owning it—and building more homes will not solve that problem if they cannot get through the door.

The political response has rightly focused on supply. Canada needs to build more homes, and we need to build them faster. But after decades working across development, construction and investment, I have come to believe that the housing problem is not simply a shortage of buildings. It is a system that is not working well together. The way we build, finance and access ownership have become separate conversations, when they need to be part of the same solution.

The numbers show why. According to Statistics Canada in 2023, the median renting family under 35 had just $12,000 in liquid assets. Even if that entire amount were put toward a home purchase, the median family would still have been $80,000 short of a 20 per cent down payment. For renting families aged 35 to 44, the median shortfall was $97,000.

And the ability to close that gap is becoming harder when so much income is already going toward housing. StatCan found that in the first quarter of 2024, renters spent 33.3 per cent of their income on housing, compared with 22.8 per cent for homeowners. Renters also had negative net savings of $707 on average, compared with positive net savings of $2,835 for homeowners.