Example Solutions

Round 1: Data Driven - Solutions for informed decision-making

Secondary Rental Market Data

An online want-ad platform has a home rentals section, including secondary suites and other rental types not covered by the census or CMHC housing surveys. People using the platform are offered a voluntary option to allow their data to be shared with a third party, who anonymizes the data and makes it available to interested parties (renters, property owners, decision-makers). Standardized questions collect data that could be incorporated into government data banks for analysis, supporting the “housing” data segment. HSC funding could support tailoring of the solution to collect data on and address the specific housing concerns of black and racialized renters, the implementation of robust privacy controls, testing and scaling the application.

Municipal dashboard of housing indicators

A municipal dashboard tracks progress towards key performance targets from the city’s Housing Strategy and the UN Sustainable Cities indicators. The dashboard uses existing statistics and packages them for use by citizens to encourage support for the city’s housing policies. HSC funding could support the testing and addition of new housing supply indicators, and the creation of an application base for other municipalities to create similar indicator dashboards for their communities, resulting in broader outcomes related to the “housing development” data segment.

Safe Housing for All

Gender diversity questions are added to health and social services questionnaires to get more precise disaggregated data about people in precarious housing situations. New insights are gained when the data is analyzed, revealing the need to adapt current shelters and transitional housing to keep LGBTQ2S clients safe from discrimination. HSC funding could support standardizing the collection of this data in health services across Canada and create partnerships that match this data on demand to existing (or needed) supply in a community.