Michael Ruge Says the Housing Crisis Is Solvable. Here’s Why He’s Right.
Let’s be honest. Most of us have stopped believing the housing crisis will ever get better. We’ve seen the headlines for years. Prices keep climbing. Rents keep climbing. And the dream of owning a home feels like it’s slipping away for good.
But Michael Ruge has a different take. He’s been building housing for 45 years, and he says the crisis is absolutely solvable. Not with some magic wand. Not with government handouts. But with practical, proven strategies that actually work.
Here’s what he means.
The scale of the problem
Canada is short somewhere between 3.5 and 5.5 million homes. The United States is short about 3.7 million units overall, with nearly 7 million affordable rental homes missing for extremely low-income renters. Those numbers are staggering. But Michael Ruge doesn’t see them as hopeless. He sees them as an opportunity.
When supply is this low and demand is this high, the law of supply and demand pretty much guarantees outrageous prices. But that also means every new home built makes a real difference. Each unit added to the market takes pressure off the whole system.
Why builders aren’t building more
If the need is so obvious, why aren’t developers building more housing? Michael Ruge says the answer is bureaucracy. Between 30 and 40 percent of the total cost of a new housing project has nothing to do with materials, labour, or land. It’s permits, approvals, development charges, and checklists with 100 items when 20 would do the job.
Forty years ago, you could get a project approved in three weeks. Now it can take up to five years. Work backward from that, and you understand exactly how we got here. More importantly, you know exactly where the solutions and opportunities lie.
The capital problem
Most people think the housing crisis is just a government problem. Michael Ruge says they’re mistaken. We also have a capital problem. There are enough empty lots, idle capital, and workers to house every family on a waitlist. Yet the system we built to protect us also stops us from providing that housing.
With the right private lender, housing development offers one of the most reliable returns you’ll find. Our teams have sat across the table from banks, municipalities, regulators, and investors for four decades. We know exactly where the system breaks down.
A workaround that works
So what’s the solution? Michael Ruge’s approach is refreshingly straightforward. Partner with homeowners. Work with the city. Sell to a big developer. Recoup your investment. Everyone wins.
The homeowner gets a great deal. The developer picks up land. And our team profits from the work we do well. The underlying philosophy is simple: make the process profitable for everyone involved.
The Walmart story
There’s a story Michael Ruge tells that perfectly illustrates why waiting doesn’t work. A developer wanted to assemble 27 houses into a block. Twenty-six owners saw the opportunity and said yes. One said no. Drive past today and you’ll see a Walmart, Home Depot, and Best Buy. In the middle stands one house. The owner who held out is now surrounded, and the window to act on the developer’s terms has closed.
It’s the clearest picture of what happens when people wait for a better moment that never comes.
A life’s mission
Michael Ruge wants his tombstone to say two things: World’s Best Grandpa and Michael helped solve the housing crisis. That’s not corporate marketing. That’s genuine purpose. And it’s the kind of thinking we need more of in the housing sector.
The housing crisis is solvable. It will take thousands of developers of all sizes building 5 to 500 units each. It will take private capital from people who understand their money can work harder with less risk sitting in a real asset. And it will take the kind of determined optimism that Michael Ruge brings to every project.
Michael Ruge’s new book “Building Hope in the Housing – How to Solve the Rental Affordability Crisis” will be realeased this fall (2026).
Sources:
NLIHC Releases The Gap 2025: A Shortage of Affordable Homes
Quarterly Residential Vacancies and Homeownership, Second Quarter 2026
Housing Supply: Still Undersupplied by Millions of Units
Building Hope in Housing – How to Solve the Rental Affordability Crisis
Links to Michael Ruge, Affordable Apartments and his Initiatives:
Michael Ruge’s Rent-to-Own Strategy: A Real Solution to Canada’s Housing Crisis
Michael Ruge’s Strategy for Solving the Housing Crisis Through Funding
Michael Ruge- A Visionary Real Estate Developer Solving the Housing Crisis in the Cowichan Valley
