"A combination of soaring house prices (a typical home in London now costs £482,779, or about $815,000), a shortage of social housing, and government cuts to local authority budgets has led to a desperate situation for many low-paid families in the capital." 

Wow, in places like Vancouver and Toronto that sounds like pretty cheap housing. And unlike in other expensive places like London, in neither of these Canadian cities do most get the benefit of higher wages, extensive public transit networks or cultural cachet. We just put up with it - well, so far anyway.