Experts, the industry and governments all agree that Ontario’s current housing crisis — centred on the GTA — is firmly rooted in insufficient housing supply.

To address the issue, Ontario will need to build many more new homes over the next 10 years: 1.5 million more new homes, to be precise. Building that number of new homes in a decade is a monumental challenge. That’s why Ontario’s home-building industry recently released a five-point plan to advise governments on how to get there.

The target of 1.5 million new homes was set out in the report of Ontario’s Housing Affordability Task Force (HATF) in February, and was confirmed in a report by Smart Prosperity Institute (SPI) this month. For context, building 1.5 million new homes in a decade will require increasing the number of annual housing starts in Ontario by 50 per cent over the highest number we have been able to achieve since 1987 — approximately 100,000 in 2021 — and maintaining that level for 10 years. According to SPI, the need for homes will be greatest in the GTA, with Peel Region needing to build 277,000 new homes, Toronto, 259,000 and York, 180,100.