Affordable Housing and Green Jobs in Canada - June 2, 2010 CANADIAN HOUSING AND RENEWAL ASSOCIATION
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Affordable Housing and Green Jobs in Canada
June 2, 2010
CANADIAN HOUSING AND RENEWAL ASSOCIATION
1. DECLARATION
The greening of Canada’s affordable housing must be a central component of a national green
economic development and employment strategy designed to lift low-income Canadians out of
poverty.
2. BACKGROUND
With a global market value of approximately $5 trillion, the world’s green economy is growing
faster than the economy as a whole1, with a profound shift in focus toward emerging green
technologies and skills in the areas of alternative and renewable energy, energy efficiency, and
green buildings.
The activity generally cited as having the greatest potential to produce green jobs in this new
economy, particularly in the short term, is energy efficiency. It is estimated that eight to eleven
direct person-years of work are created for every million dollars invested in energy efficiency2,
compared, for example, to just 3.5 person-years of work for Alberta’s oil and gas extraction
industry3.
Over the last decade, annual combined investments by Canadian housing providers and
governments in the construction and renovation of affordable housing, and in the provision of
homelessness services, has increased from $4.5 billion to $5.5 billion4. Still the gap between the
capital expenditures that are being made and what is needed persists.
GOVERNMENTS WITH VISION
While the early green economy trailblazers are overseas, closer to home governments at the national, provincial/
state, and municipal levels are developing green economic visions in which energy efficiency play a large role.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act allocates $27 billion, or 34% of its $80 billion total, to green jobs
development, including $5 billion for low-income weatherization projects and $600 million for green job training.
Ontario’s recently-passed Green Energy Act commits to creating 50,000 jobs in its first three years, with a focus on
attracting renewable energy investment. Energy efficiency is a secondary priority, and a more aggressive investment
approach would strengthen this already promising legislation.
Vancouver’s Bright Green Future plan aims to create 20,000 new green jobs while reducing greenhouse gas emissions
by 33% from 2007 levels, making all new construction carbon neutral, and improving energy efficiency of existing
buildings by 20%.
CANADIAN HOUSING AND RENEWAL ASSOCIATION 1During this 10-year period, federal investments in affordable housing as a percentage of gross
domestic product fell 25%5, and the country’s only national low-income energy efficiency
program was cancelled in 2006. Meanwhile the United States and United Kingdom are rapidly
expanding investments in affordable housing and green jobs, including low-income energy
efficiency retrofits, in order to drive a sustainable economic recovery, while also addressing
poverty and climate change.
This policy statement, flowing from a resolution passed by CHRA members at its 2009 annual
general meeting, asserts that Canada’s social housing provides a key market for the quick
expansion of green employment across Canada. It further asserts that low-income Canadians
with barriers to family-supporting employment, including social housing tenants and the more
than 1.5 million households still seeking affordable housing, should be key beneficiaries of green
economic growth.
3. WHAT ARE GREEN JOBS?
Green, or “green collar”, jobs contribute to positive environmental, social and economic outcomes.
Most green jobs are found in existing high-demand occupations, including those common to the
building and manufacturing industries6.
Green jobs must be good jobs, offering benefits, safe and decent working conditions, opportunities
for growth and advancement, and family-supporting wages. Indeed there is a growing international
green jobs movement, including allies in the business, labour, community, social justice and
environmental sectors, that is working to ensure that a greener economy is an economy whose
benefits will be more broadly enjoyed. The inclusion of Canada’s affordable housing sector in this
alliance is a key to shaping a greener Canadian economy.
4. SMART ECONOMIC POLICY
The skilled labour shortage currently hampering Canada’s construction industry is likely, according
to labour market forecasts7, to intensify with accelerating baby boomer retirement. Given the
relative stability and steady demand characterizing Canada’s housing industry, intense labour
shortages would slow growth and drive up construction costs. Targeting low-income Canadians with
labour barriers for construction trades training is smart policy that will lift people out of poverty
while growing the economy.
In many cases the greening of blue-collar jobs requires no new skills, but rather a shift in how
existing skills are deployed. For example, a home insulation installer’s work may not change, but
they may encourage clients to insulate to a higher efficiency standard.
Sometimes new skills are required for green collar jobs. Colleges and trades associations are
key partners in ensuring that existing training programs are updated appropriately, and
where necessary new training opportunities are developed. It is the relatively modest training
requirements that many of these jobs require that makes them ideally suited to providing new
opportunities for many social housing tenants and others who currently lack family-supporting jobs.
CANADIAN HOUSING AND RENEWAL ASSOCIATION 25. BUILDING PATHWAYS OUT OF POVERTY
Canadian governments currently spend in excess of $5 billion annually on the operation and
development of social housing. With 1.5 million Canadian households still with unmet housing
needs, and more than 200,000 homeless Canadians, government investment requirements are
not shrinking.
To address this demand, more affordable housing will be required, in tandem with income-
generating poverty reduction strategies that reduce the growing need for housing assistance and
income support. This can be achieved through targeted labour market development that links
those who most need work with the jobs that most need doing. High growth careers in green
jobs- including affordable housing construction, renovation and maintenance- represent key
opportunities to engage Canadians who face barriers to the labour market and a decent living.
A particular focus should also be placed on addressing the employment and training deficits
experienced by aboriginal communities, which have an especially young population. Numerous
Aboriginal housing, employment and support organizations are working now to address these
issues, and are ready, with increased resources, to do more.
Social housing organizations are anxious to be active partners in this employment creation
process, and indeed a number of them have already undertaken initiatives that are creating
green job training and employment opportunities for their clients. Winnipeg’s Building Urban
Industries for Local Development (BUILD), in partnership with the provincial government,
launched its Warm Up Winnipeg program, which retrofits homes to make them more energy
efficient while training and employing low-income individuals- including a significant number of
Aboriginals- who face difficulty getting and keeping family-supporting jobs.
Choices for Youth is a supportive housing provider for homeless and at-risk youth in St. John’s
that collaborated with the federal and provincial governments, private contractors and the local
trades college to launch the Train for Trades initiative in 2008 to train and employ youth with
significant employment barriers to work in the construction trades. After successfully completing
the construction of new supportive housing for youth in downtown St. John’s, the initiative has
been re-positioned as a permanent green jobs social enterprise which will train and employ youth
to complete energy efficient retrofits of social housing.
BladeRunners, an employment training and support organization serving unemployed, at-risk
and often street-involved youth on Vancouver Island and British Columbia’s Lower-Mainland,
has a 15-year track record of success. It focuses on matching the construction needs of the
communities in which it operates with youth training and apprenticeship opportunities. A large
portion of the program participants are aboriginal, and effective delivery partnerships have
been developed with Aboriginal organizations. Other key partners include employers, trades
organizations and governments.
CANADIAN HOUSING AND RENEWAL ASSOCIATION 36. SOCIAL HOUSING: UPGRADES NEEDED!
It is widely accepted that building energy efficiency retrofits provide the most immediately
available, attainable and cost effective green job investment opportunities. Canada’s social
housing inventory includes over 600,000 homes meeting the needs of low-income and special
needs families from coast to coast to coast. Most of these homes were built in the 1960’s, ‘70’s
and ‘80’s, and now require substantial condition and energy efficiency upgrades. As energy prices
increase, the financial burden to social housing providers, and to other low-income households
paying their own utilities, grows and adds to the affordability gap between what low-income
Canadians can afford to pay for housing, and the cost of that housing. This in turn is putting
pressure on governments’ housing and income support programs that often have to bridge the
affordability gap.
In 2009 the federal and provincial/territorial governments demonstrated that they understood
the green job creation potential of upgrading this housing by committing to invest more than
$1 billion over two years. This initial investment, designed and implemented quickly due to the
sudden economic downturn, was a first step. It should now be followed by a more comprehensive
social housing upgrade program that brings the homes to a specific and high standard of both
condition and energy efficiency. This program must address current failures to combine condition
and energy upgrades, and must ensure that the full range of energy upgrades – including
insulation, draft proofing, roof design and materials, air circulation - are addressed properly and
in an integrated manner that derives maximum results.
CANADIAN HOUSING AND RENEWAL ASSOCIATION 47. PRINCIPLES
CHRA will continue to take a leadership role in shaping the development of a national green
economic development and jobs strategy that includes social housing as a key market and
partner.
The green economic development strategy must be based on the following key principles:
• Green jobs account for a large and growing portion of the global economy, and green
economic development is key to future economic success;
• Key labour markets, including those in the construction industry, are facing shortages,
and need development support;
• Existing government investments provide opportunities to support green economic
development;
• The benefits of green economic development must improve the lives of economically
and socially marginalized Canadians, primarily through the targeting of green jobs and
by ensuring that green jobs are good jobs with good wages;
• The alleviation of energy poverty is a central policy goal;
• Non-governmental organizations are key contributors to the development and imple-
mentation of Canada’s green economic development strategy;
• Affordable housing need is an economic issue, and solutions will depend on supporting
greater economic success among struggling households along with the expansion of
the social housing portfolio;
• Canada’s social housing portfolio, much of which is in need of deep energy and condi-
tion upgrades, presents a key green jobs investment opportunity;
• There are trailblazers like BladeRunners, Choices for Youth, and Warm Up Winnipeg,
whose innovation should be supported and built upon.
CANADIAN HOUSING AND RENEWAL ASSOCIATION 5An effective green economic development and jobs strategy will feature energy efficiency, and
the social housing sector particularly, because:
• Building energy efficiency assessment and retrofits are well-established, and not
dependent on innovation;
• Energy efficiency measures quickly pay for themselves;
• Enhancing the energy efficiency of low-income households alleviates energy poverty;
• Canada’s social housing portfolio requires substantial condition and energy efficiency
upgrades, and it will be most effective if they are done in concert;
• Social housing providers are ready to be active partners with governments that invest
in initiatives that assist low-income Canadians with employment barriers.
8. POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
CHRA recommends that the federal and provincial/territorial governments build green partnerships
that include allies in the business, labour, community, social justice, environmental, affordable housing
and homelessness sectors to develop Canada’s green economic and jobs strategy.
CHRA recommends that all governments currently offering housing, income support, employment,
job creation and training programs seek ways to make them support the development of a greener
economy and green jobs.
CHRA recommends that the above governments target low-income Canadians with barriers to family
supporting employment as a key labour pool for the construction and other high-demand sectors.
As ratified by members at its 2009 Annual General Meeting, CHRA recommends that the Government
of Canada not only make permanent, but expand, the federal EcoEnergy Retrofit program with an
additional $250 million annual investment over five years to target low-income households with
limited or no financial capacity to pay for home energy audits and retrofits themselves.
CANADIAN HOUSING AND RENEWAL ASSOCIATION 69. CONCLUSION
Canada’s social housing providers have long been effective landlords, managers, and contributors
to positive community change. In many cases their efforts have extended to the provision of
supports that assist families as they strive to build more prosperous futures. They have long
recognized that these efforts alone are not enough to see their tenants realize their full personal,
social or economic potential, and that a good job that pays a living wage is a key to relieving their
affordable housing need.
Not only should social housing tenants and other low-income Canadians be targeted by
governments for green jobs training and employment support, but the more than 600,000 social
housing units themselves constitute an ideal energy efficiency retrofit market that requires
government investment. Connecting people with employment barriers to the employment
opportunities that social housing retrofits provide, supported by training in the basic skills that
many energy efficiency jobs require, makes good policy sense for Canada’s federal and provincial/
territorial governments.
1
Building British Columbia’s Green Economy: Building a Strong Low-Carbon Future, P. 7. The Globe Foundation. Note: dollar figure given
in USD, but currently comparable to Canadian context given approximate dollar parity.
2
Greener Pathways: Jobs and Workforce Development in the Clean Energy Economy, P. 15. Center on Wisconsin Strategy/The
Workforce Alliance/The Appollo Alliance, 2008. This report references US dollars, however with the Canadian and US dollars near or at
par the translation to the Canadian requires no conversion.
Green Jobs: It’s time to build Alberta’s future, P. 16. The Sierra Club Prairie/Greenpeace/The Alberta Federation of Labour.
3
4
Annual federal investment increased from $1.6 billion in 1999 to $2.2 billion in 2009, and provincial investment increased from $2.2
billion in 1999 to $3 billion in 2009. Housing providers make substantial condition and energy upgrades from their rental revenues.
[These figures are drawn from Statistics Canada, as reported in The Wellesley Institute’s Canadian Housing Fact Sheet released on
December 3, 2009.] Very conservatively, an annual expenditure of $500 per unit across a 600,000 unit portfolio adds another $300
million of national investment. The $5.5 billion figure does not account for Municipal or private sector investments in affordable
housing and homelessness, making a total figure of approximately $6 billion annually today realistic. This also does not include the
current one-time economic stimulus investment in affordable housing totaling almost $2 billion during 2009-2011.
Canadian Housing Fact Sheet, P. 3. The Wellesley Institute, December 3, 2009.
5
6
While the green jobs definition does not usually include professions that require advanced, often university-provided, training,
including engineers and industrial designers, Canada’s green jobs strategy should include measures to ensure that gaps and
anticipated requirements in these professions are addressed.
7
Construction Looking Forward (National Summary): An Assessment of Construction Labour Markets from 2009-2017, P. 1. The
Construction Sector Council, 2009.
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