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A plan to house Vancouver's homeless is taking shape on the drawing board of a local architect. It calls for the rapid erection of temporary villages assembled from the same type of modular units that mining companies provide for remote workers.

"Stop Gap Housing" is what architect Gregory Henriquez calls it.

Henriquez, whose Woodward's includes 200 units of social housing built to last hundreds of years, stressed that Stop Gap Housing would never replace permanent homes.

"It's portable dwellings. It's not meant to be a permanent fixture on the landscape. But it could serve for several years until we complete the construction of permanent housing," he said. "I think it's better than leaving people homeless."

the crux of Vancouver's exploding homelessness problem is as follows: social and economic dislocation is rendering British Columbians homeless much faster than BC Housing can build homes for them.

"The big issue has to do with permitting," Henriquez said. "For a normal social housing building, you might need rezoning, then you need a development permit, then a building permit. That takes years."

But Stop Gap Homes would rest on wooden blocking, not permanent foundations.

"These can all be done through temporary permitting," Henriquez said. "It's a 12-month permit that can be renewed."

Builders respond to market demand. What is it people want?

In 1970, the average new single-family home was 1,500 square feet; in 2005, the figure swelled to 2,434 square feet — an increase of over 900 square feet.

In 1970, 36 percent of new homes were under 1,200 square feet; by 2005, only 4 percent were. In 1970, only 10 percent of homes were over 2,400 sq. feet; in 2005, 42 percent were.

American homes are bigger, taller, and with more amenities than the houses of old. The result: a large increase in the number of new two-story-plus homes (17 percent in 1970 vs. 55 percent in 2005), the number of bedrooms (four bedroom homes grew from 24 percent in 1970 to 39 percent in 2005), the number with 2-1/2 baths on the market has doubled, and the number of homes with two-car garages has increased from 39 percent to 64 percent — with an additional 20 percent of new homes sporting three-car garages. Size has mattered, too, in new multi-family housing, where the number of units over 1,200 square feet has doubled since 1990, from 20 percent to 43 percent.

America could be scaling expectations to bring about a lower-cost reality. We have not. But don't blame it all on the sprawling suburbs. You can see this upsizing in Seattle neighborhoods where bungalows are being remodeled and renovated by new buyers. Often, you'll see buyers take a small, 1,000-square-foot home, expand it, add granite countertops and a professional chef kitchen, add a deck, a bunch of bathrooms and walk-in closets, and flip it for high-end resale. A perfectly habitable small home that cost cost $500,000 has now been upgraded with completely optional lifestyle amenities, and the price more than doubled.

Tomorrow's report card comes two weeks after Canada's largest municipalities reported that incomes are not keeping pace with the rising cost of housing and called on Ottawa to craft a national plan.

Under the 2001 federal-provincial housing deal, Ottawa agreed to spend $680 million over five years if the provinces matched the federal funds. Ottawa added $320 million in 2003 and brought the total federal-provincial funding promised to $2 billion.

But federal-provincial spending data collected by the Wellesley Institute shows that spending on housing in 2007 was roughly the same as in 2001. (This doesn't include a one-time $1.4 billion federal payment to the provinces in 2007, the result of a deal struck between the previous Paul Martin government and the NDP to ensure passage of the 2005 budget.)

"This means that, across the country, instead of a net new $2 billion in housing funding, as promised in 2001, any new housing funding has either replaced previous dollars or not even been made," the report says.

Wednesday's meeting is the first time in more than two years the housing ministers have met. Federal Human Resources Minister Monte Solberg has not yet confirmed his attendance and if he doesn't show up, it will be the first time in almost a decade that Ottawa hasn't been represented at such a gathering, Shapcott says.

During the last provincial housing ministers' meeting held outside Halifax in 2005, Ottawa and the provinces agreed to work quickly on a national federal-provincial housing strategy with goals, timetables and long-term funding.

Little has happened in the interim. As a result, all current federal housing programs are set to expire by March next year.

This week's meeting comes in the wake of last fall's fact-finding visit by the UN's Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, who called on the federal government to work with the provinces to implement and fund a comprehensive national housing strategy to meet the housing needs of Canadians.

Canada is the only major country that doesn't have a national housing strategy, the report notes.