Professor and housing expert Jim Dunn has been awarded the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) 2024 Gold Roof Award for Knowledge to Action.

Dunn received the award, which recognizes projects that link outstanding research to real actions that are making a difference in the housing sector, for his Housing Sustainability & Investment Roadmap (HSIR) project with the City of Hamilton.

The HSIR project is designed to guide the city’s affordable housing efforts.

The award highlights the appetite to address the nationwide affordable housing issue, says Dunn, who is the director of the Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative (CHEC), is spearheading McMaster’s new Master of Public Policy in Housing Policy.

“The development of the roadmap represents a model for university-municipality collaboration,” said Dunn.

“The HSIR is an evidence-based strategic implementation framework that was 10 months in the making. It now guides housing action at the City and we hope this award will help other municipalities to adopt similar approaches”

The project started in June 2022, when the City of Hamilton and CHEC began a research-to-action initiative to develop an evidence-based strategic implementation framework to tackle the issue of affordable housing.

In Hamilton, between 2011 and 2021, 15,854 units with monthly rents below $750 were lost, and for every new home built in under a federal government program, 23 units rented for under $750 were lost.

The research examines why the stock of affordable housing is being eroded, and what can be done to prevent it. It looks at four main pillars: new construction, acquisition, preservation and housing-based supports for those in need.

Hamilton’s adoption of a renoviction bylaw in April 2024 was a direct impact of the HSIR. The bylaw aims to tackle bad-faith evictions and protect tenants through new requirements for landlords who want to complete renovations where vacant possession of a unit is required.

“Many cities are now facing acute challenges of unaffordable housing and homelessness,” said Dunn. “While the crisis response to homelessness is critical, at the same time, we need a strategy to reform the housing system, and the Roadmap acts as a guide to that reform.”