New Housing Alternatives is a Canada-wide partnership between academics and communities, dedicated to researching housing challenges and developing community-led solutions that are equitable, affordable, and rooted in social justice. We’re based at the University of Toronto.
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Research Clusters & Projects
The NHA partnership involves four self-organizing research clusters which will pursue core multi-year pan-Canadian research projects, as well as more localized shorter research projects focussed on key research questions. Below we list the projects that have begun in each cluster. The list of research projects will be updated as new projects are added to each cluster.
Alternative Housing Arrangements
Studies co-ops, community land trusts (CLTs), and other community-led housing.
Reform & Redesign of Housing Policy, Governance, & Process
Works to make housing policies fairer and easier to access.
Vision Statement and High-Level Research Objectives
New Housing Alternatives (NHA) is a pan-Canadian research partnership, begun in 2024, to understand the problems with our housing system and to research ways of transforming the system so that it benefits all Canadians, especially those who are vulnerable, lower-income, and from equity-deserving groups, and so that it promotes social justice.
NHA brings together a diverse interdisciplinary team of academic researchers, housing agencies, and community organizations to identify new housing policies and alternative housing arrangements for Canadian cities.
Our overarching goal is to conduct policy and community-relevant research to help transform Canada’s housing system into affordable, equitable, collaborative, grounded in human rights, provides natural choice, and honours and promotes Indigenous people’s land rights.
This requires a comprehensive and holistic approach to understanding housing precarities, community-led housing alternatives, housing policy, and a transformative research agenda that examines multiple alternatives to current housing models.
We have four high-level, over-arching research questions:
- How can we decommodify Canada’s housing system?
- How can we desegregate Canada’s housing system?
- How can we de-financialize Canada’s housing system?
- How can we decolonize Canada’s housing system?
Please read our Land Acknowledgement and about their importance in Canada.
Our Partnershlp Grant is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (2024-2031)