PLAY PODCASTS
How corporate landlords are eroding affordable housing -- and prioritizing profits over human rights
Season 6 · Episode 4

How corporate landlords are eroding affordable housing -- and prioritizing profits over human rights

One factor driving the housing crisis, across the country, is a shift away from publicly built housing toward large corporate-owned buildings where, as today’s guest Prof. Nemoy Lewis puts it, "housing is treated as a commodity, not a human right.”

Don’t Call Me Resilient · Nemoy Lewis, Rehmatullah Sheikh, Jennifer Moroz, Ateqah Khaki, Kikachi Memeh, Scott White, Vinita Srivastava

October 19, 202337m 45s

Audio is streamed directly from the publisher (chrt.fm) as published in their RSS feed. Play Podcasts does not host this file. Rights-holders can request removal through the copyright & takedown page.

Show Notes

Everybody knows it and almost everyone feels it: we’re in the grips of a major housing crisis. Home ownership is out of reach for so many people and for renters, units are hard to find and expensive. It seems everywhere you turn these days, there’s another rent strike. One of the factors driving this affordability crisis has been a shift away from publicly built housing toward large corporate-owned buildings. As Prof. Nemoy Lewis, from the School of Urban and Regional Planning at Toronto Metropolitan University, puts it: now “housing is treated as a commodity, rather than a human right.” He joins Vinita to discuss these corporate landlords and the disproportionate impact they are having on Black and low-income communities. He says it’s creating truly income-polarized cities – and urban centres that are increasingly accessible to only a small group of wealthy people.

Topics

vancouverinterest ratescorporate landlordtorontomortgagehousingstarlightfinancialized landlordrental unitsrent strikeaffordable housing