Canada. The town pays 85 thousand zlotys to build a house

On its website, Moosomin announces a yearly tax holiday for any construction worth at least CAD 150,000. Last week, local authorities added another incentive – 30 thousand Canadian dollars (85 thousand PLN) in cash for anyone who builds a house on the site.

Moosomin is located in agricultural land, but there are also mines, pipelines, and industrial plants in the area, so the town wants to take advantage of development opportunities, and for this it needs new residents.

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Moosomin has benefited from a federal housing construction support program. The aid will be provided to individual investors building their own home, as well as construction companies building a single-family home, a house with several apartments or even adapting the basement of an existing building to living conditions, which is a common solution in Canada.

After the project is approved and a building permit is obtained, the investor receives 30,000 Canadian dollars for the first apartment or house, and 8,000 for each subsequent one.

Canadian media quoted Moosomin councillors as pointing out that rural towns are struggling with growth and declining importance.

The decreasing number of inhabitants in smaller urban centers has been noticed by the federal government, which has programs encouraging new immigrants to settle in small towns and rural areas.

Last year, a group of researchers from two Canadian universities, McMaster and Wilfried Laurier, reported that more immigrants are already settling in small and medium-sized communities than in Canada's three largest urban centres – Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal – and this is possible thanks to programs that direct immigrants to places where their skills are needed.