Hundreds of thousands of Canadians exist on the edge. Renters fear eviction, homeowners feel trapped, and both are vulnerable to becoming homeless with a single stroke of misfortune.

Unaffordable housing in Canada is tearing communities apart. Rising prices force long-time residents to move elsewhere, while established businesses are forced to close their doors because they cannot find staff who can afford to live nearby.

In Home Truths, housing expert Carolyn Whitzman explores Canada’s crisis from all sides, including defining what adequate housing looks like, explaining why non-market housing is crucial for Canada, and outlining how and why to tackle ever-growing wealth disparities between renters and those who own.

Home Truths details the decades of policy that got us in this mess and shows how all levels of government can work together to provide affordable housing where it is needed, using evidence-backed ideas from planners, politicians, developers, and advocates at home and abroad.

This is the book that Canadians need to understand, and solve, our housing crisis.

Carolyn Whitzman is a senior lecturer in Urban Planning at the University of Melbourne. She is also author of The Handbook of Community Safety, Gender, and Violence Prevention: Practical Planning Tools (Earthscan 2008), and previously worked for the City of Toronto on healthy-city initiatives.

Carolyn Whitzman's profile page