Public housing was developed in Manitoba in the 1960s in response to a half-century of failure by the private sector to provide adequate housing for low-income people. Winnipeg writer Doug Smith is the author of Property Wrong:The Seventy-Year Fight for Public Housing in Winnipeg published by Fernwood Books. You can order it here.
He has prepared these backgrounders on the history of public housing.
- The eternal crisis in affordable housing
- “Larger spaces and better houses”: the first calls for public housing in Winnipeg
- Public-health officials as public-housing advocates
- The opponents of public housing
- The ratepayers’ votes of 1935 and 1953
- “Taxes subsidize big landlords”
- The role of provincial governments in establishing public housing
- The role of women in the creation of public housing
Right to Housing is posting these articles as they appear on its website.
- Triangle Gardens: A cautionary tale
- Wartime Housing in Winnipeg
- The Preston Avenue Fire and the birth of the Winnipeg Housing Rehabilitation Corporation
- The public-housing project the real-estate industry killed