Part 1: What We Can Learn From Wartime Housing Limited
Canada’s housing crisis has revived interest in modular construction as a way to build homes faster, more affordably, and at scale. Over the next few weeks, we’ll explore this topic in a three-part series, examining whether modular housing can truly be a transformative solution.
We begin by looking back at Wartime Housing Limited (WHL), the Crown corporation created during the Second World War to rapidly deliver affordable rental housing for war-industry workers and returning veterans. WHL is widely regarded as a landmark success in delivering large-scale housing, completing 25,771 units by late 1946. Its experience offers valuable lessons for Build Canada Homes, the new federal agency tasked with building affordable homes at scale.
At the heart of Build Canada Homes is the premise that modular construction can reduce costs and improve efficiency in delivering affordable housing. WHL’s achievements serve as an example of what’s possible when government, municipalities, and industry work together. While WHL substantially expanded the housing stock, the key question remains: can its success be replicated in today’s context?
A closer look at Wartime Housing Limited
WHL represented a major policy shift, moving responsibility for housing away from the private sector. Established under the War Measures Act in 1941, its mandate was limited to providing temporary housing for workers in Canada’s war industries, often clustered in industrial towns similar to those common in 19th-century U.S. and Europe.
WHL worked closely with municipalities across the country, which supported the effort by providing vacant land at nominal cost and offering services in exchange for a modest annual payment per house. Since these homes were intended as temporary, they were typically built without basements.
While this approach helped address housing needs for workers in targeted industries, it did not address the growing shortage of housing for the families of soldiers — a problem that was beginning to affect military morale. In July of 1942, The Globe and Mail reported: “A rising tide of bitterness is being noted among servicemen because of the conditions under which their families are forced to live because they are not included in the Wartime Housing program.”
Canada’s wartime housing challenges
The combined effects of the Great Depression and the war had created a severe housing shortage. Overcrowding was common in rentals; vacancy rates were less than 1 per cent; and much of the existing housing stock was in poor condition.
By 1944, the government was beginning to wind down WHL’s operations. However, as public concern over housing needs grew it became clear that the federal government would have to step in. As one contemporary report noted: “Public agitation over the serious nature of the post-1944 shelter problem, heightened by the evictions issue, forced the federal government to assume temporarily and reluctantly the social responsibility for the direct provision of housing. In the spring of 1944, public attention increasingly focused upon the threat of mass evictions in a period of extreme housing congestion.”
In response, WHL extended the approach it had used to house war–industry workers to include veterans and their families. Builders were hired to carry out projects according to pre-approved designs, and the government gave WHL priority access to materials that were in short supply. Once a project was completed, WHL rented the units and acted as landlord.
When the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) was created in 1946-47, it inherited WHL’s assets. Temporary wartime housing was made permanent: basements were added and the homes were sold to veterans. CMHC also introduced mortgage guarantees for veterans, enabling 25-year mortgages with monthly payments comparable to what they had previously paid in rent.
By 1949, WHL and CMHC had started 49,611 units and had finished 45,930 under both the war workers’ and veterans’ rental housing programs.
Standardization and prefab construction key
A key factor in WHL’s success was standardization combined with speed. The government issued a design book that standardized housing plans and supported modular construction, which required coordination across all levels of government, a significant allocation of resources, and prioritization of scarce resources to housing.
The modular approach enabled homes to be built quickly. Of the roughly 46,000 homes built, most used prefabricated components, such as walls and roofs, which were shipped to building sites for assembly. Rather than using a fully prefabricated approach, where fabrication and complete or partial assembly occurred in a factory, WHL workers produced standardized plywood floor, wall, roof, partition and ceiling panels in a shop at the project location, then erected and finished the homes on site.
While WHL housing was considered affordable, it was not low-income rental housing. As Leonard Marsh, author of the Curtis Report, noted, WHL had no intention of subsidizing tenants. This was a rental program that ultimately transformed into a homeownership program, but it was not targeted at low-income housing.
What can we learn from WHL?
First, cooperation is required at all levels of government. Municipalities supported WHL’s efforts and then got out of the way, allowing homes to be built efficiently.
Second, the homes were relatively simple structures. Nearby factories could produce most components quickly, thanks to standardized plans. While it would be possible to build larger units today, governments will face longer delivery timelines unless design and approval processes are streamlined.
Third, this was not targeted at low-income housing. WHL focused on specific housing needs at a price point that did not involve subsidized rents. Replicating this approach for low-cost housing will not be feasible without a clear funding plan.
Fourth, the modular approach was relatively simple. Factories would build simple standard components such as wall and floor panels. It is unclear how long it would take to get a modular factory up and running to deliver more complex structures.
Fifth, land was much easier to acquire. WHL used federal lands, parcels sold by municipalities, and, in some cases, expropriated land. Today’s lack of readily developable land will be a constraint on both timing and cost of current programs.
WHL’s success was the product of a unique context: wartime urgency and government powers; availability of resources, including land, and priority access to building materials; and standardized designs that enabled speed and cost control. Those conditions don’t exist today. As such, WHL’s success is by no means an indicator that Build Canada Homes will achieve similar results, even if it borrows from the same playbook.
Next week, in part two of our series, we’ll examine attempts at modular construction in the U.S. and Sweden, highlighting both their challenges and successes.
Independent Opinion
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