Customers need money left-over to spend
Chatham-Kent’s economy depends heavily on small and owner-operated businesses. In June 2025,
the community had 3,159 businesses with employees and 7,584 without employees, for 10,743
businesses in total. When housing and other fixed costs consume more household income, there is
less room for restaurants, retail, services, recreation and other discretionary local spending.
Campaign implication: affordability is not simply a social-program argument. It is also a
customer-base argument.

Employers need workers who can afford to live here
Housing affordability affects recruitment and retention. The source research reports that 75% of
rural businesses surveyed identified affordable housing as their greatest difficulty in attracting
workers, while 71% cited worker retention. Chatham-Kent’s own housing pressures make that issue
especially relevant.
Campaign implication: a business-friendly community must also be worker-friendly enough for
nurses, tradespeople, retail staff, care workers, hospitality workers and other employees to build a
life here.
 

Housing instability eventually becomes a public-cost problem
Chatham-Kent’s community housing waitlist reached 1,352 households in 2026, with an estimated
ten-year wait. The research also documents significant growth in homelessness and projected
demand for emergency, transitional and supportive housing.
Canadian Housing First evidence suggests that, particularly for people with high needs, stable
housing can offset substantial costs elsewhere in hospitals, shelters and the justice system. This
gives April a fiscally conservative reason to favour prevention and evidence-based intervention:
paying earlier can be cheaper than repeatedly paying for crisis.
 

Property and investment depend on the surrounding community
Property owners and investors benefit from safe neighbourhoods, maintained infrastructure, active
commercial areas, public amenities and competent municipal management. The research supports
the general economic-development logic, but it does not provide a Chatham-Kent-specific causal
estimate for how these investments change property values.
Campaign implication: do not promise that a particular municipal investment will raise property
values by a specific percentage. Make the broader, defensible case that people protect private
investment by maintaining the public conditions around it.
 

Growth only works if people can stay
Chatham-Kent reached an estimated population of 113,070 in July 2025, up 1.23% from 2024, while
the source research reports local wages remaining below the Canadian median. If housing and other
costs rise faster than local earning power, Chatham-Kent risks weakening one of the qualities that
can make it attractive: the ability to build a life here at a manageable cost.
 

Growth should not be treated as the finish line. The question is whether
growth produces a community in which residents, employers and investors can thrive over the long
term.