text: The problem is a shortage of affordable housing; you know, housing that people with families who live and work in the area can actually afford to buy or rent. It seems to me there is one mechanism that would work to solve this problem: have the City or GTA buy up land, and build co-op housing as in years past. Adding say a thousand units a year onto the market for 10 or 20 years will make an appreciable difference to availability and affordability, and drive rents down in the medium term. Prices will follow, to the extent that they are driven by local market conditions at all. 
  
  Much better to use public resources to actually house people rather than to inflate asset values as is presently the case.