Toronto’s Housing Shortfall, Explained

New research takes aim at the idea that Toronto’s housing crisis is not really a matter of a supply shortage at all.

By Josh Sherman | 3 minute read

Despite a large body of research that suggests the contrary, in the ongoing debate about housing affordability in Toronto, some have argued that the region’s housing crisis doesn’t boil down to supply-and-demand fundamentals.

For example, some have noted that there are five million bedrooms sitting empty across Ontario — with many presumably in the Greater Toronto Area — while others have pointed to the fact that the average size of a GTA household hasn’t increased in more than a decade.

If Toronto didn’t have enough homes, wouldn’t the typical household grow as more and more residents were stuffed together in the same dwellings? 

A new report from the Centre for Urban Research and Land Development seeks to debunk the latter argument. 

“We can’t look at the household size and say just because it’s been stable, supply has not been an issue,” Diana Petramala, senior research fellow at Centre for Urban Research and Land Development, tells Wahi.

To begin, the report confirms that the typical Toronto household in 2024 was unchanged from 2013. However, this doesn’t tell the full story.

While the average household size remained around 2.75 persons over the 11-year period, if Toronto had enough housing that

number should have actually decreased. That’s because single people are the fastest growing household type across the region. 

The fact that the average household size has remained stable despite the rise in the single demographic suggests that more individuals are jammed into a limited supply of house. In a well-supplied housing market, more singles would bring down the average household size.  

In terms of long-term consequences, Petramala suggests that not building enough housing will result in more Torontonians — particularly newcomers to the city and country — living in substandard conditions. “Areas that tend to undersupply see a higher percentage of households living in a core housing need,” she says.