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Better to move a home than demolish it, insists non-profit

Of the total homes being demolished, upwards of 20 per cent or 18,000 homes are in good enough state to be relocated and reused.

Published Sep 25, 2026  •  3 minute read

Gil Yaron, managing director of circular innovation at Light House says that “a time when Canada is calling for shovel-ready non-market housing, we should be asking how we can make better use of the housing and resources we already have."

Over the next decade, it is estimated that 90,000 homes across seven major Canadian cities will be bulldozed with the bulk of the remains dumped in a landfill site generating an estimated 176 million tonnes of waste, a new national study has found.

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Entitled A Second Life for Canada’s Homes, the feasibility study was conducted by Light House, a Vancouver non-profit that states its primary focus is in advancing regenerative and circular practices in the built environment.

This comes at a time when demolition is booming. As an example, within the GTA alone anywhere from 1,180 to 1,720 single family homes will be demolished each year, with the research forecasting that “annual demotion activity will more than double the historical average over the next decade.”

Describing the situation as a “demolition epidemic,” authors of the report state that federal and provincial housing strategies are the drivers behind the anticipated increase in demolition activity, emphasizing rapid construction and urban intensification to address affordability challenges, while municipal zoning reforms are allowing multiplexes and secondary suites in areas that previously permitted only single-family dwellings.

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“These measures, though aimed at increasing housing supply, have the unintended consequence of converting large numbers of existing, livable houses into waste.”

They also state that of the total homes being demolished, upwards of 20 per cent or 18,000 homes are in good enough state to be relocated and reused.

Gil Yaron, managing director of circular innovation at Light House said that “a time when Canada is calling for shovel-ready non-market housing, we should be asking how we can make better use of the housing and resources we already have.

“We are demolishing thousands of homes every year while communities across the country face serious housing shortages and emergency housing needs.”

According to a release, the housing opportunity is “particularly relevant” for First Nations communities “where significant shortages persist.

“The Assembly of First Nations estimates that more than108,000 additional housing units are needed nationally, while the study identifies strong regional housing needs among First Nations communities in B.C., Alberta and Ontario – the same provinces where several of the strongest potential source markets for relocated homes are located.”

On the flip side, the study notes that a typical 1,300 sq. ft. wood-frame home contains upwards of 49 tonnes of building materials and 23 tonnes of embodied carbon, all of which would end up in a landfill if it were not relocated.

Asked what surprised him about the findings, Yaron said that “that we have had a history of relocating homes in this country and across North America for hundreds of years, and yet our policies and our attitude towards housing have not recognized and captured this as a solution. (It would) address housing, our waste crisis because construction demolition waste makes up about a third of our landfills, and our climate issues.

“The surprise for me is that no one’s connected the dots between our linear economy and the impact it’s having, and the opportunity that a circular economic solution presents to using our existing housing assets to their maximum potential.”

Relocation, he added, will not replace new construction, “but where the conditions are right, it can put existing homes backing use faster and more affordably while keeping valuable buildings and materials out of the waste stream.”

There is also, he said, a need for social housing and affordable housing in many communities outside of major urban centres: “It makes no sense seeing these homes come down and thrown into a landfill.”

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