The Data Behind the Crisis: How Better Analytics Can Solve Housing Needs
In the face of Canada’s national housing crisis, characterized by growing housing unaffordability, housing typologies that are less suited to the shifting needs of modern households, and rising homelessness, municipalities and housing agencies should ask themselves a critical question: Are you using the right data to make the right decisions?
Historically, housing policy has been shaped by anecdotal evidence, periodic surveys, and lagging indicators. But as the crisis deepens, relying on intuition or static metrics is no longer sufficient.
What’s needed now is real-time, localized, predictive analytics that address who needs housing, what type of housing is needed, and how will those needs evolve over the coming 5- and 25-years.
Better data can help governments and housing providers design better housing and development policies that direct investments more effectively. UrbanRe has the tools and expertise to help.
🧠 Why Data Matters in Housing and Urban Strategy
Housing needs don’t look the same across communities. Even within a single municipality, different neighbourhoods experience unique affordability pressures, demographics, infrastructure and other contextual constraints.
Without localized, disaggregated, and timely data, planners are forced to make broad decisions that may miss the mark — or worse, exacerbate inequities. Strategic use of data enables cities to:
Forecast future housing demand
Prioritize development in high-need areas
Identify underserved populations
Evaluate program effectiveness over time
🔍 Data Types that Drive Impact
To shift from reactive to proactive, here are five categories of housing-related data every policymaker should monitor on neighbourhood and municipality (or regional) levels:
1. Affordability Metrics
Median income vs. median rent/home price
Core housing need rates
Rent burdened households (>30% income to housing)
This reveals not just whether housing exists, but whether it’s accessible.
2. Supply Pipeline and Vacancy Rates
New builds in progress
Units approved but not started
Rental vacancy by unit type
Essential to assess whether housing supply is keeping pace with demand.
3. Demographic and Migration Data
Age cohorts, family types, immigration status
Interprovincial and international movement
Student or seasonal population surges
Supports tailoring housing stock to specific community profiles.
4. Displacement and Eviction Trends
Formal eviction filings
Rent increases and renoviction activity
Transit-oriented development pressures
Helps anticipate where intervention is needed before displacement happens.
5. Service Demand and Outcomes
Shelter usage rates
Waitlists for subsidized housing
Program exit data into permanent housing
Gives insight into where systems are overloaded or underperforming.
🧭 Tools That Help Make Sense of the Data
Raw data alone is not enough — analysis is key. Here’s what’s transforming housing strategy:
📍 GIS Mapping allows for visualizing data geographically allows cities to locate affordable housing deserts, transit-adjacent land for intensification, and even areas at risk of gentrification.
🤖 Predictive Modelling can make use of historical trends with defensible assumptions to forecast future housing demand by region, growth in affordable housing waitlists, and the risk of homelessness among specific populations. This supports preventative investment, not just responsive spending.
📊 Dashboards and Open Data Portals that offer user-friendly platforms to allow for public transparency, real-time decision-making, and collaboration among agencies by understanding the root issues at play and taking coordinated action. The best cities are making data part of the democratic process, not just a bureaucratic tool.
🏗️ UrbanRe’s Role in Housing Analytics
At UrbanRe, we help municipalities, regional agencies, and housing providers move from data collection to data action, using leading-edge analytics that offer foresight into how housing needs to be developed.
We offer:
Custom housing needs assessments tailored to local conditions
Predictive models to anticipate displacement and affordability stress
Interactive GIS dashboards that engage decision-makers and the public
Scenario planning tools that empower communities to plan for tomorrow
We don't just analyze — we activate. We turn data into practical insights that help inform smarter, more equitable housing policies and programs.
📈 From Insight to Action
Good data tells a story. Great data helps us anticipate the future. As Canada’s housing crisis grows in complexity, analytics is not a luxury, it’s a necessity. Municipalities that invest in strong data now will be better positioned to:
✅ Prevent homelessness before it happens
✅ Build the right kind of housing in the right places
✅ Prioritize equity and inclusion in housing delivery
✅ Direct limited resources to where they are most effective
UrbanRe is proud to support these outcomes, helping cities translate numbers into progress and planning into results. But data doesn’t create housing, people do. With the right tools, municipalities can enable housing faster and more fairly. Let’s stop flying blind and start making evidence-based progress toward a future where everyone has a place to call home, supported by UrbanRe.