The NB Housing Summit: Solutions to Promote Housing Affordability in the Mid-sized City of Saint John, New Brunswick

Abstract

Canada is in the midst of a national housing crisis that renders households vulnerable to unstable and unaffordable housing, and various forms of homelessness. New Brunswick is a largely rural Canadian province with three mid-sized cities that have lower housing values than larger Canadian centres. However, affordability is eroding in the province’s housing market, and the rental market offers few options for low-to-moderate-income renters. Simultaneously, visible homelessness and encampments are on the rise. Saint John, one of the mid-sized cities, is a relatively new destination for housing market investment and interprovincial migration, which is leading to higher rents and housing purchase prices. Through an analysis of World Café data collected with 85 individuals (representatives from government, people with lived experience of housing instability, non-profit agencies, housing developers, etc.) in Saint John, New Brunswick, this paper presents locally driven, on-the-ground solutions to the housing and homelessness crises in a mid-sized city.