When people talk about Victoria’s housing crisis, the conversation often begins and ends with one question: How many homes can we build? It’s the wrong question.

Housing affordability is connected to almost every major challenge facing our city. A shortage of family doctors makes it harder to attract skilled workers. Addiction and mental health issues increase pressure on emergency services and supportive housing. Transportation affects where people can afford to live and work. Lengthy permitting processes increase construction costs. A struggling economy limits both private investment and public resources.

These are not separate problems. They are parts of the same system.

Building more housing is essential, but it won’t solve affordability on its own. Without coordinated action on health care, infrastructure, transportation, public safety, and economic growth, we will continue treating symptoms instead of causes.

Victoria already has many excellent plans. The next step is connecting them. Too often, governments work in silos while residents experience the combined effects.

Cities function as systems. Decisions in one area inevitably affect another. That is why solutions must be coordinated, measured, and adjusted as conditions change.

Victoria has the talent, institutions, and community spirit to address these challenges. But lasting progress will require us to stop viewing housing as a stand-alone issue and start treating it as part of a broader strategy for building a healthier, safer, and more prosperous city.

The housing crisis is real. But solving it means looking beyond housing alone.