Source: French to English Tester Published on: 2026-04-23
Source: The Conversation – in French– By Raquel Fernandez, PhD candidate in interdisciplinary planning and instructor in interior design, University of Montreal
The housing crisis in Canada is not neutral. It is deeply marked by gender inequalities.
Public debates focus on the housing shortage, rising rents, and access to home ownership. These issues are important, but they do not reflect an essential reality: not everyone experiences the housing crisis in the same way. Women are particularly affected, due to theirincreased economic insecurity and their overrepresentation among tenants.
According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, 55% of households with urgent housing needs and63% of households living in subsidized housing are headed by women.
Thesingle-parent families, mostly headed by women, are among the most exposed. Older women, immigrant women, racialized women, or those from gender diversity also face complex and cumulative obstacles to accessing housing. These disparities are not accidental. They reflect economic and social conditions that restrict access to stable and secure housing andrender invisible the differentiated effects of the crisis according to gender.
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Since the 1990s, thedisengagement of the State and the commodification of the housing sectorhave accentuated dependence on the market, to the detriment of social and affordable housing. This trend has led to rising costs and increased precariousness for certain populations. Thus, the housing crisis is not limited to reflecting gender inequalities; it can also exacerbate them.
I am pursuing a doctorate in urban planning at the University of Montreal on collective housing for women in Canada. Based on the analysis of several projects, I examine how the organization of housing, their spaces, their rules, and the relationships they enable influence living conditions, autonomy, and safety.
A gendered housing crisis
The housing crisis is not the cause of gender inequalities; it is embedded in the social and economic structures that already produce them. Access to housing depends closely on income, job stability, and family responsibilities—dimensions themselves marked by inequalities. Indeed, poverty affects more74% of single-parent families headed by a woman.
It is also more frequent among women who experience multiple forms of discrimination. The concept ofintersectionalityallows us to understand that some people experience multiple forms of inequality at the same time. For example, a woman may face obstacles related to her gender, origin, economic situation, or migratory status. These realities do not simply add up, but combine and reinforce each other.
Women more often holdprecarious or part-time jobs, and still assume aimportant part of domestic work and caregiving. These realities have a direct impact on their ability to access stable housing. Housing is therefore not just a neutral setting. It is a dimension of the built environment where resources and opportunities for action are distributed unequally.
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The dominant residential models, often designed around the nuclear family and private ownership, are hardly responding tomore diverse life trajectories or increased support needs. The housing crisis acts as a mirror that reflects and amplifies existing inequalities. Access to stable and truly affordable housing depends not only on individual choice but also on a social and spatial organization that is likely to favor certain populations to the detriment of others.
Policies that have reconfigured access to housing
The current inequalities are part of an overall evolution of housing policies in Canada. From the 1990s onward, the gradual withdrawal of the federal government and thetransfer of responsibilities to the provinces have profoundly changed the role of public authorities. This shift is accompanied by an increased dependence on the market and a significant decrease in investment in social housing. Policies have further supported the development of so-called “affordable” housing, without however meeting the needs of the most vulnerable households.
The financialization of housing, the promotion of private ownership, and the reduction of public funding have thus reduced the supply of genuinely affordable housing. Today, access to stable housing increasingly depends on economic resources, which exacerbates existing inequalities that particularly affect women and marginalized people based on gender, for whom access to housing remains more precarious.
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Housing poorly adapted to the diversity of trajectories
Beyond policies, the design and organization of housing decisively influence living conditions. Dominant residential models favor private units, a compartmentalized organization of spaces, and a marked separation of domestic responsibilities. Historically, these forms of housing have paid little attention to the diversity of experiences, particularly those of women.These models, designed based on androcentric and patriarchal norms that isolate women and render domestic work invisible, respond with difficulty to more diverse life trajectories.
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These configurations leave little room for more collective forms of life or for support needs. They limit the establishment of mutual aid networks and complicate adaptation to diverse realities. Thus, housing is not limited to being a space. Its configuration directly influences the social relationships it enables and can either facilitate or hinder autonomy and emancipation.
Other ways of living
Since the 1970s, in several North American cities, someFeminist initiatives offer alternative approaches in the field of housing, notably in the form of cooperatives and collective housing. In the 1980s, collective housing projects for women appeared in Canada, includingcooperatives and self-managed housing initiatives.
These living environments seek to reconcile individual autonomy and collective life, relying on the sharing of resources, cooperation, and attention to daily needs. These initiatives are part of a broader context of cooperative housing development, while offering an approach explicitly focused on the realities of women.
Initiatives such as the cooperativeMaison des Reb’Elles in Montrealillustrate this approach. Designed to meet the needs of women, these projects integrate common spaces and forms of organization that promote mutual support in daily life.
These initiatives offer alternatives to the dominant residential models, providing another way to conceive housing, focused on the needs of people rather than market logic. This reconfiguration of domestic spaces is part of a broader reflection on feminist design, which is not limited to designing homes “for women” but aims to create inclusive and equitable environments.Despite their potential, these housing initiatives remain marginal and little supported.
Rethinking housing as a gender issue
The housing crisis is generally seen, in the public debate, from the perspective of supply and affordability. However, it reveals deeper gender inequalities. Access to housing, public policies, and traditional housing models contribute to these inequalities. In times of crisis, these mechanisms become even more evident, making often invisible realities visible.
Rethinking housing therefore requires going beyond a strictly economic approach to make it a genuine issue of equality. Ignoring the gender dimension in the housing crisis means making invisible those who are most affected by it.
Raquel Fernandez received funding from the University of Montreal, the Interdisciplinary Research Center on Intersectional Justice, Decolonization, and Equity, and the Montreal Research Center on Social Inequalities, Discriminations, and Alternative Citizenship Practices. She works as a lecturer at the University of Montreal.
–ref. The housing crisis hits women harder, according to studies –https://theconversation.com/the-housing-crisis-hits-women-harder-according-to-studies-277427