When did housing stop being a “home”?

Over time, our idea of housing has been systematically stripped of its function as “home”. Instead of it being a site of belonging, refuge, dignity, and safety, housing has been reconfigured as an aggressively managed investment.

The housing crisis we face in Ottawa is the predictable result of the financialization of housing. It’s characterized by the expansion of institutional capital, or Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), into the rental market. The landlord is no longer a service provider, but an asset manager.

In the eyes of financialized landlords, long-term tenants that pay affordable rents become “underperforming assets”. The removal of these tenants through eviction, intimidation, or buyouts becomes a financial incentive.

To unlock the full value of an asset, financialized landlords can use harmful strategies. 

Renovictions and Demovictions

Older and more affordable buildings are acquired and upgraded to luxury stock, a process that depends on the displacement of the existing tenant base. Both renovictions and demovictions actively remove affordable housing units from the available stock. However, demovictions can erase that stock permanently. This systemic removal is particularly acute in Ottawa, where 31 housing units priced at below $1,000/month are lost for every one unit built.

Strategic Neglect 

Evidence suggests some financialized landlords engage in “constructive eviction” by deliberately neglecting repairs in units occupied by low-rent paying tenants, making life unbearable until they leave. Ottawa has become a focal point for these strategies. 

The Erasure of Herongate 

This neighbourhood stands as an egregious case study in displacement. It involves the systemic demolition of a vibrant neighborhood in south Ottawa to make way for premium rentals. Over 230 homes were destroyed, expelling hundreds of working-class families.

Before the redevelopment, Herongate was one of the most diverse and affordable neighbourhoods in the city. Over 90% of residents facing eviction were racialized, specifically with large populations of Somali, Arab, and Middle Eastern immigrant families.

Tenants reported that the townhomes were deliberately allowed to fall intodisrepair. Maintenance requests for mold, pests, and broken windows were ignored to justify demolition as the only option.

The Bank Block 

This is a current and unfolding case involving the displacement of tenants from four buildings on Bank and Nepean streets in downtown Ottawa.

Tenants facing demoviction were given mere weeks to vacate homes that some had occupied for decades. The landlord intends to demolish the existing buildings, which contain roughly 25-30 affordable rental units, and replace them with a nine storey mixed-use development containing 263 units. While this increases density, the new units are largely premium studios, or small apartments targeting students and young professionals, with rents expected to be 3-5 times higher than what current tenants pay.

The Bank Block case highlights a major loophole. Under the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA) in Ontario, the “right of first refusal” gives a tenant the legal right to return to their original rental unit after repairs or renovations are completed, if they were evicted for that purpose. The application of this in cases of demolitions (where the original unit ceases to exist) is weak and often contested.

Even if tenants return, the new unit is considered a “new build” and thus exempt from provincial rent control guidelines.

Emergency shelters serve as a barometer for the financialization of housing.  

The emergency shelter system is a visible measure of housing market failure. When housing is treated as a financial asset rather than a human right, the most vulnerable members of our community are displaced and forced to rely on emergency and related social services, such as food banks and the Ottawa Mission’s meal services.

The lack of affordable housing is a main driver of the skyrocketing use of emergency food and meal services. Households have to choose between paying their rent and feeding their families. As financialization of housing increases, rent prices surge, which in turn drive rapid increases in food insecurity rates, which have risen from 16.3% in 2019 to 25.7% in 2025.

In a healthy housing market, shelters function as short-term emergency accommodation. However, financialization removes the “exit” ramp by eliminating affordable rental stock. Record rates of shelter occupancy, new demographics of homelessness, and longer shelter stays provide irrefutable evidence that the financialization of housing is extracting capital value from the market at the expense of human need.

We should not let the market dictate the terms of basic rights. 

That’s why the Ottawa Mission is calling for a responsible municipal budget that invests in solutions that prevent homelessness, not just manage it. We are asking City Council to: 

• Adopt a strong municipal anti-renoviction bylaw: A bylaw that requires landlords to obtain building permits before issuing eviction notices, provide relocation compensation, and guarantee tenants the right to return at the same rent. 

• Increase the supply municipal land for affordable housing at no cost: By providing surplus city land to non-profits, the City removes the biggest cost barrier (land speculation), allowing providers to build deeply affordable units that the private market can’t deliver. 

• Streamline approvals for non-profits: Creating a “fast-track” for non-profit projects reduces soft costs and delays, ensuring new affordable stock comes online faster to meet the urgent demand. 

• Return to the $30 million level for new affordable and supportive housing units:  While there has been a nominal increase to the capital budget for new affordable and supportive housing within the 2026 budget, it is still below the $30 million within the 2023 city of Ottawa budget. Returning to the level set in 2023 will increase desperately needed affordable housing stock. 
• Fund emergency food services in our community appropriate to the rapidly increasing need for food. The budget has allocated $476,000 to food insecurity. While this is a 15% increase from last year, out of a total $5.2 billion operating budget for the city, this is far below what is needed to meaningfully address food insecurity. 

Everybody deserves a home. Together, we make this Mission Possible.