Imaginative Solutions to Solve the Housing Crisis: A Brief Directory
Here are some imaginative, innovative solutions for solving our housing crisis.
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If you're Canadian you know and are likely affected by our never-ending housing crisis. I've made a quick directory below about some imaginative, innovative solutions for the housing crisis that I've seen scattered across the internet.
Putting it all together in one post is actually inspiring and gives me hope - there are so many creative people out there and ways through this crisis if only we can think big enough.
Okay, ladies, now let's get in formation
(Thank you, Beyoncé)
- What about a community of tiny homes for women? Read: Texas Landlord Who Founded an All-Women Tiny-Home Village Gives Her Best Advice: ‘Invest in a Community’
- ...or just pool your money with your girlfriends and buy a house. Read: Seven Chinese girlfriends buy mansion to retire and die together
- Ladies living together en masse is nothing new! Take inspiration from the medieval Beguines
- Toronto Star: Why millennial women are choosing to build a ‘Golden Girls’ future living with friends
Activism Matters
- Watch this short, twenty-minute documentary for free: Inside the unique London community built by residents to defy housing discrimination
Rural solutions
- No need to reinvent the wheel, we can learn from existing examples: Learning from co-ops in rural Canada
- News in Canada: This rural Saskatchewan town is offering $30,000 to anyone who builds a home there
- News in Scotland: You could live on a tiny remote island off the UK coast and get paid a staggering £70K a YEAR… but it’s not all easy
Canadian Inspiration
- The universal basic income test project in 1970s rural Manitoba that could pave the way for housing crisis solutions thanks to Evelyn Forget
- Medicine Hat, Alberta had eliminated homelessness, even as the path has been rocky and requires commitment
- There is an episode of Good People with Mark Sakamoto back in 2020 which focuses on housing, see episode 1, "Between the Cracks", focusing on solutions coming out of Medicine Hat and Barrie!
- You can watch this episode for free on CBC Gem if you are in Canada!
- MacLean's: How One Canadian Tech Millionaire Built a Tiny-Home Community (spoiler: he built 99 tiny homes in Fredericton, New Brunswick!!)
- CBC News Nov 2025: Could a rise in Indigenous-led developments move the needle on Canada's housing shortage?
Think intergenerational
- Dutch nursing home offers rent-free housing to students: the example of the Humanitas Retirement Village
- Intergenerational friendships are very possible and can perhaps create a symbiotic housing arrangement! These real life examples of such friendships do not live together but you can see how this kind of thinking reminds us that even outside the Dutch example of Humanitas, seeds have been planted!
- Video on Aeon: Can young and old coexist at a feminist co-living residence?
Women build cities
- Part of the housing crisis is actually building said housing. However, in Canada, and especially BC, we do not have enough people who are capable of building safe, quality housing. We need more women in trades! There are lots of education grants, career opportunities and resources to support you. Find out more here.
- Dolores Hayden's non-sexist city
- Read Hayden's OG article here.
- Meet the Feminist Resistance Fighter Who Created the Modern Kitchen
- Happening right here in BC: get involved, connected, and educated with Women Transforming Cities. I'm a member and have learned SO much from this amazing organization!
- Get reading: Women Changing Cities: Global Stories of Urban Transformation by Melissa and Chris Bruntlett
- From 2021 but still relevant over at Chatelaine: How To Build A Feminist City: A Blueprint In Three Parts
Can we build better?
- Video: How the Dorze in Ethiopia make ‘beehive’ houses from bamboo that last a lifetime
- Bricks made of fast fashion waste = a solution for two crises: FabBRICK Turns Textile Waste into Bricks since 2018
- Getting to the HART of affordable housing
Temporary Solutions
- A German city has created sleep pods for the homeless
- Academic study: Rent control improves average welfare of cities
European Inspiration
- Vienna, Austria: In the Austrian city of Vienna, more than half of its residents live in some form of subsidized housing
- More about Vienna: The social housing secret: how Vienna became the world’s most livable city
- The example of Finland: Housing is a human right: How Finland is eradicating homelessness
