Policy Fixes to Make Downsizing Rational

For decades, housing planners have assumed that seniors would eventually downsize, freeing up family homes for the next generation. But that hasn’t happened.

In this episode, Cara Stern and Mike Moffatt explore why most seniors choose to stay in their homes and why that decision is often perfectly rational. High moving costs, limited housing options, strong community ties, and government policies that encourage aging in place all make downsizing far less appealing than planners expected.

This mistaken assumption has shaped housing forecasts, contributed to today’s housing shortage, and fueled tensions between generations. Are seniors really the problem, or did policymakers simply plan the housing system around the wrong idea?

And if seniors aren’t moving, what does that mean for families trying to find space in cities where family-sized homes remain scarce?

In this episode, we discuss:

• The Over-Housing Myth: Why the term does more harm than good.
• The Cost of Moving: Taxes, fees, and the "financial loser" trade-off of downsizing.
• Involuntary Over-Housing: What happens when seniors want to move but have nowhere to go.
• Policy Failure: How municipal assumptions about generational turnover are decades out of date.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

01:00 The Irony of Planners Assuming Seniors Will Downsize

2:32 Flawed Assumptions About Generational Turnover and Life Expectancy

03:47 The Problematic Term "Overhoused"

07:11 Defining "Involuntarily Overhoused"

08:25 Underhousing Statistics in Toronto

09:04 Zero Sum Mentality Created By Housing Shortage

10:40 Density as a Solution for Seniors and Reducing Resentment

12:33 The Financial Calculation: Why Moving Makes No Sense for Seniors

14:00  Policies Actively Paying Seniors to Stay in Place

16:09 Places where they have Implemented Better Policy 

Research/links:

Right-Sizing Housing and Generational Turnover

https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/planning-development/planning-studies-initiatives/housing-to-2051/

Perspectives on Growing Older in Canada: The 2025 NIA Ageing in Canada Survey – National Institute on Ageing, Toronto Metropolitan University

https://niageing.ca/reports/perspectives-on-growing-older-in-canada-the-2025-nia-ageing-in-canada-survey/

Canada’s Demographic Time Bomb: What Boom, Bust & Echo Got Right - 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3VT7x1lrBs

City of Toronto – Garden Suites and Laneway Suites

https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/planning-development/planning-studies-initiatives/garden-suites/

Hosted by Mike Moffatt & Cara Stern & Sabrina Maddeaux

Produced by Meredith Martin

This podcast is funded by the Neptis Foundation and brought to you by the Smart Prosperity Institute.