TORONTO, ON – June 17, 2025 – The Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) is losing the very people who hold it all together. Teachers, nurses, transit operators, skilled tradespeople – the workers who make cities prosperous and livable – are being priced out of the communities they serve. This isn’t just a workforce issue – it’s a growing crisis with deep human and economic implications, says a new research report by CivicAction, released today.
The Why: The Human Story of Workforce Housing report highlights that nearly half of the region’s households earn between $40,000 and $125,000 a year, but that’s not enough to secure suitable and stable housing. As a result, many workers face impossible choices: crushing commutes, spending more than 30 per cent of their income on rent or a mortgage, losing time with children and loved ones, or else leaving the region altogether, taking their spending power and talents with them.
“Cities can’t function when the workers who power them can’t afford to stay,” says CivicAction CEO Leslie Woo. “It means strained public services, fewer people entering key professions, reduced wellness, and a growing sense that our neighbourhoods are becoming less livable for everyone.”
Until now, individual players – governments, financial institutions, housing developers, social service providers and others have all taken their own steps to try to tackle the affordability crisis on their own. A multidimensional problem, however, requires a coordinated and comprehensive solution with people at the centre. Every decision maker must be at the table, working together to speed and scale housing affordability for middle-income workers in the GTHA, an economic engine for Ontario and Canada.
“We have already seen the beginning of this exodus from most major cities in the GTHA,” says Woo. “And when you do the math, it’s a stunning $7.5 billion annually in lost GDP.”
That’s why CivicAction launched Mission: Affordable – an evidence and story-centred initiative to spotlight the affordability crisis facing middle-income earners and rally a cross-sector response everyone can get behind. And through its Housing Affordability Collaborative, CivicAction is mobilizing major employers and leaders in finance, building, nonprofits, and government to work together to accelerate systemic solutions.
“This collaborative partnership approach is urgently needed,” Woo says. “This isn’t just a housing affordability crisis. It’s a threat to the social and economic fabric of Canada’s largest urban region. The question isn’t whether we can fix it — it’s whether we’ll act fast enough to keep the people who make our cities work. With the right leaders, the right shared vision, and the urgent collaboration we need, we believe it can be done.”
The Why: The Human Story of Workforce Housing is the first in a series of four “call-to-action” research publications to be published by CivicAction, written by TD Housing Affordability Leaders-in-Residence, Jeanhy Shim and Mukhtar Latif. The full series, to be released in 2025, examines the workforce housing challenge in the GTHA and proposes actionable solutions to address this critical issue.
Key Facts:
- 550,000+ residents left the GTHA from 2014 to 2024
- 67.7% of GTHA middle-income worker survey respondents actively considered changing jobs and/or moving in the past 3 years
- The GTHA contributes 50% to Ontario’s GDP and 20% Canada’s GDP
- Estimated 2.1% GDP loss = $7.5B annual
- Survey respondents are spending over 30% of their income on housing costs:
- 66% spending more than 30% income on housing
- 29% spending more than 50%
- Survey respondents say the most negative and disruptive impacts of their long work commutes include depleted time and energy for family (52.3%), mental health and well-being (45.9%), and time and energy for outside work interests (50.9%).
- Data shows that solving for housing affordability in the GTHA will have significant “multiplier benefits” for employers and workplaces, public services, social equity, and the environment and traffic congestion, in addition to significant benefits for individual, family, and community well-being and quality of life.
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Media Contact:
CivicAction CEO Leslie Woo and other key spokespeople are available to the media for interviews. Please contact media@civicaction.ca.
About:
CivicAction is a catalyst for positive change, turning collaboration and civic engagement into action to build livable, inclusive cities in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. As the charitable arm of CivicAction, the CivicAction Leadership Foundation provides high impact leadership programs that open doors, minds & opportunities for young, emerging, and under-represented leaders in the GTHA.
Mission: Affordable is CivicAction’s public campaign to raise awareness about the housing affordability crisis in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA). It encourages collective action from governments, businesses, and individuals to support solutions that ensure moderate-income workers can afford to live in the communities they serve. Mission: Affordable emphasizes the impact of unaffordability on local services, economies, individuals, and communities.
