Financialization of housing from cradle to grave: COVID-19, seniors’ housing, and multifamily rental housing in Canada
Studies in Political Economy
; 102(3):289-308, 2021.
Article
in English
| ProQuest Central | ID: covidwho-1642116
ABSTRACT
This paper explores the links between housing, financialization, and inequality—as exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. It focuses specifically on seniors’ housing (retirement and long-term care homes) and purpose-built rental housing, exploring how government cuts and retrenchment in the late 1990s created an opportunity for private profits for financial investors in housing that catalyzed a dramatic rise in “financialized” ownership of care homes, retirement properties, and multifamily rental housing in the province. Financial business strategies then generated a series of crises exacerbated by COVID-19. In rental housing, a crisis of affordability has led to displacement pressures and a COVID-related flood of evictions. In seniors’ housing, a crisis of care has been exposed by disproportionate deaths in long-term care and retirement homes nationwide. In Ontario, COVID-19 death rates were highest in financialized and corporate-owned for-profit homes, pointing to the downsides of prioritizing investor profits over housing, good jobs, and high-quality care. This paper is part of the SPE Theme on the Political Economy of COVID-19.
Business, And, Economics--Economic, Systems, And, Theories, Economic, History; COVID-19; financialization; housing; long-term, care, (LTC); rental, housing; Political, economy; Affordability; Quality, of, care; Retirement; Property; Profits; Residential, care; Crises; Inequality; Mortality, rates; Private, sector; Public, housing; Investors; Displacement; Long, term, health, care; Nursing, homes; Ownership; Evictions; Prioritizing; Multiple, dwellings; Older, people; Pandemics; Rentals; Coronaviruses; Retirement, homes
Full text:
Available
Collection:
Databases of international organizations
Database:
ProQuest Central
Language:
English
Journal:
Studies in Political Economy
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
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