Canada Crushes its Housing Messaging and Partnership

What the USA can learn from our upstairs neighbors

I simply had to share this with you all.

Especially since my last post was about writing/messaging around homelessness, when I saw this video (and the partnership it’s highlighting) I was blown away. Take a minute to watch this, and then let’s talk about why it’s so great.

In one minute, this video encapsulates so much about housing injustice. There’s so much more that can be said, but here are the things that stood out to me:

1. Simple, precise messaging

Volumes and volumes have been produced about housing markets and how they are failing. This video could have been a docuseries. Instead, it shows a simple set-up: people of multiple demographics all racing toward one key, with tons of unpredictable pitfalls along the way—only overcome when they work together and topple the game itself. It’s incredibly efficient, easy to follow, and evocative. It’s a message for everyone about an issue effecting everyone.

2. Enough details to sink your teeth into

The pitfalls along the way signpost some of the complexities: rising costs, rent hikes, tariff wars, restrictions on family size, etc. I could be picky and wish that some of these highlighted more vicious prejudices like racism and discrimination against low-income renters, but I can forgive them for the sake of efficiency and mass-appeal (these things are more present on their website messaging.) But there’s enough here that if you want to connect deeper, you can.

3. Tapping the cultural zeitgeist without relying on it

It’s no accident that this video feels like Squid Game. The matching track-suits are a clear reference. Like Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl performance, this ad is intentionally homaging the hit show and its themes of class warfare; specifically the idea that the poor and vulnerable are forced to compete to the death for the amusement and satisfaction of the wealthy and privileged. Baking that in to this ad’s visual language is brilliant—and, you don’t have to have watched Squid Game to get the message. It works on the surface level, but is even more rewarding if you understand the reference.

4. This isn’t just a subversive statement, it’s a policy platform

Far too often, campaigns like this are meant to shock and rally people around agreeing about a problem, without having a clear solution. The Housing Canada Coalition has a 10-Step Policy Plan to accomplish their goals.

5. “End the Housing Game” is a great slogan

Again, it’s concise, efficient, and evocative. In four words, it frames the housing crisis as a “game”, which already makes a strong statement: something that is essential has been reduced to a game, and that it’s potentially rigged. Within that framing, the word “end” is evocative. It isn’t “Win” the housing game, which is how so many of us live—making sure we “get ours” regardless of who else succeeds or fails. Instead, “ending the game” implies resistance, subversion, and evolution. Just great stuff.

What excites and impresses me the most, though, is the coalition this campaign represents. From their website:

The Housing Canada Coalition is a partnership between the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness (CAEH), Habitat for Humanity Canada, the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), and the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association (CHRA).

This is extremely noteworthy: a nationwide homelessness advocacy org has teamed with a national nonprofit (which is faith-based, BTW!!!), the national real estate association, and housing and renewal. Wow! Talk about all-in! To have so many significant players on board, who historically have disagreed about solutions and values, signals both the urgency and possibility in store here.

I’m hopeful that we could see something like this in the U.S. There have been many terrific rallying moments, like Johnson V. Grants Pass, but which haven’t coalesced into rallying around particular legislation. Some of this, of course, can be attributed to the change in leadership and the likelihood of passing any such legislation. Nonetheless, what Canadian advocates have done here is inspirational and, hopefully, aspirational for the rest of us.

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