Housing 'mismatches' part of Hamilton's affordability crunch: report

• By Brian Shaw
• Posted Monday, Sep 15, 2025 9:51 am

Housing 'mismatches' part of Hamilton's affordability crunch: report

Hamilton is short on family-sized rentals and faces a looming housing crunchfor older adults, says a study that underscores the city’s overall affordability challenges.

And much of what’s available on the ownership market is too large and expensive for what many buyers can afford.

To tackle such challenges, Hamilton needs a “co-ordinated and strategic response,” Justin Lewis, director of the city’s housing secretariat, told council this week.

The call for an overarching “housing master plan” that builds on strategies the city has already drafted springs from a consultant’s housing needs assessment.

That study was conducted as a requirement of the federal government’s housing accelerator fund, which in 2023 earmarked $93.5 million for Hamiltonto help create 2,675 housing units over three years.

The city has a “strong foundation” in its Housing Sustainability and Investment Roadmap (HSIR), but “that’s just the beginning,” Lewis said.

An overarching master plan that builds on the 2023 HSIR “means setting clear targets, building the right mix of homes” and working with government and community partners, he said.

The SHS consulting study pulls from a variety of sources, including Statistics Canada and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, as well as surveys and focus groups, to sketch a detailed portrait of Hamilton’s residential landscape.

One- and two-person households made up 60 per cent of all households in Hamilton in 2021, but small homes accounted for only 32 per cent of local stock.

That meant the housing supply was made up of “disproportionately larger units, which tend to be more expensive and create a barrier for entering the ownership market.”

On the flip side of this “mismatch,” renter households of three or more people jumped by 3,225, or 41.1 per cent between 2016 and 2021.

“This increase is partially due to households choosing to rent when they can not afford to purchase a dwelling that has a suitable number of bedrooms.”

But 7.3 per cent of purpose-built rentals in Hamilton had three or more bedrooms as of 2023, presenting a shortage in adequate stock.

To help address that deficit, the housing secretariat, which allocates government funding, has supported projects that offer a mix of unit sizes, Lewis said.

But there’s “limited ability to control unit size in new developments, which makes targeted solutions more difficult to implement,” he noted.

Staff, nonetheless, are finalizing a family-friendly housing strategy for early next year that aims to find ways to “incentivize” or “require” larger units, noted Anita Fabac, acting planning director and chief planner.

Anecdotally, Fabac added, the development industry is moving toward larger units in line with market demand. “So the hope is that we would continue to see that through applications coming in, but also look at how we could require it.”

The recommendation to create a housing master plan overlaps with a sluggish residential construction market, particularly weighed down by flatlining condo sales in Ontario.

“We’re seeing a shift away from small units because the private sector can’t sell small units,” Coun. Maureen Wilson said during Wednesday’s discussion.

“We have abandoned dog crates in the form of condos and no one wants to build condos in the private marketplace because no one wants to buy them.”

Hamilton’s aging population, with residents 65 and older representing the second-fastest growing demographic and those 45-64 years old making up the second-largest group, underlines another emerging crunch.

“These populations will need supports, including measures for affordable aging-in-place,” the SHS report notes. 

A housing solution for older adults goes “hand in hand” with improved public transit like “peas and carrots,” said Wilson, pointing to a need to ensure mobility and prevent isolation.

While Hamilton’s real estate market has softened, housing prices and rental rates have spiked for several years, substantially eroding affordability.

For instance, the average rent in 2014 was $813, compared to $1,431 in 2023, making for a 76 per cent increase, noted the study, citing CMHC data.

Meanwhile, the average sales price for newly built single-detached homes in 2014 was $497,431, but surged to $710,968 in 2023, a 42.9 per cent jump.

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