Natalie van Rooy
Natalie van Rooy focuses on how policy, markets and public services land on people’s doorsteps. She reports for CTV News as a multi-platform journalist and anchor, covering real estate alongside a broad mix of local public-interest stories that centre on housing, community safety, schools and health care.
Housing pressures and families lining up for homes
Real estate coverage runs through her work as a way into larger questions about affordability and access to housing. In one widely viewed story, she reports on families camping out for days to secure new homes, following buyers through the overnight wait and into the sales office to show how demand and pricing affect ordinary households.
She extends that focus on homes into coverage of disasters and infrastructure: her reporting on seasonal flooding along the Ottawa River documents residents filling sandbags and installing sump pumps to protect their properties as water levels threaten neighbourhoods. She also contributes to coverage of a provincial disaster assistance program that helps some flood-affected residents but leaves other areas outside the support zone, highlighting who is eligible for help and who is not.
Her reporting on community mailboxes identifies which neighbourhoods will see door-to-door delivery replaced, underlining the practical changes residents face at the curb.
Schools, buses and the strain on public services
Education and everyday services are another consistent thread. She covers spring convocation ceremonies for local college graduates, placing the milestone against a backdrop of rising unemployment rates and an uncertain job market.
Her reporting follows school boards as they respond to proposed legislation that would shift more power to the Education Ministry, including warnings from trustees about repeated budget deficits and the difficult choices they are told they must make. She also tracks the operational side of schooling, reporting on a school bus “parent portal” launch that leaves 9,000 students without a bus ride and capturing the mixed feelings among families trying to plan the school year around a shortage of transportation. Beyond education, she reports on stepped-up parking enforcement, detailing how bylaw officers increase ticketing and the volume of fines issued for overstaying unsigned time limits on city streets.
In each case, her coverage translates policy or administrative decisions into concrete changes for commuters, families and local workers.
Health, safety and communities under stress
Van Rooy devotes significant attention to health and safety, often through stories about vulnerable residents. She has reported on the loss of mental health programs after the closure of an Indigenous healing foundation, quoting its former head and youth in Attawapiskat who describe the impact of losing culturally grounded supports. Her coverage of a new mobile health unit outside Kemptville District Hospital shows how the HART hub offers addiction and homelessness supports, explaining what services are available and how the unit aims to reach people who struggle to access care.
She also reports on a campaign by a children’s hospital to support Canadian Blood Services, describing the “Who’s Saving Who” drive and the emotional connection it seeks to build between donors and patients.
Her public safety reporting stretches from intimate family tragedies to wider debates over rights and access to care. She covers a case in which a father suspected in a double-murder suicide had been on probation for threatening his ex-wife, using court documents to set out the timeline and conditions that were in place before the killings.
She reports on the decommissioning of a coyote den in a conservation park and the subsequent reopening of the park, explaining what work was done and when the area is safe again for visitors. She has also told the story of how the overturning of Roe v.
Wade in the United States sends more people to Planned Parenthood in Ottawa, documenting calls from Americans seeking help with abortion services and situating local providers in a cross-border access conversation.
Live local news and multi-platform reporting
Across these topics, van Rooy works as a multi-skilled local journalist, splitting her time between daily reporting, anchoring and producing for CTV News.
She has more than a decade of experience in local news and works across television and digital platforms, often appearing on-air while also contributing to online coverage and explainer pieces. Her recent work includes on-the-ground reporting during Canada Day floods, where she tracks changing river levels, outlines provincial funding mechanisms and gives space to residents left just outside designated aid zones.
In other segments she reports from college campuses, court houses, hospitals and neighbourhood streets, keeping the focus on the people navigating decisions made by governments, agencies and developers. The through-line is a clear, straightforward style that stays close to the scene, with stories that show how real estate, public services and safety issues intersect in the daily lives of the communities she covers.
4 more real estate journalists.
Addie Morfoot
Addie Morfoot covers how real estate, culture and media meet, focusing on people, rules and the way homes shape a life. She reports for The New York Times on housing and lifestyle, from personal narratives about finding a home after loss to features on how short-term rental policy affects everyday owners and renters. She writes real estate stories that connect laws and regulations to the choices available to ordinary residents in specific towns and cities. She is a regular contributor to the Sunday Routine franchise, following actors, comedians and designers through a typical day and showing how settings like homes, studios and subway cars shape daily experience. She also has a long track record covering documentary film and the entertainment business, including legal questions around fair use, changing docu-series formats, festival premieres and financing. Her portfolio spans more than two decades of work for The New York Times, Variety, The Wall Street Journal and Crain’s New York Business.
Alcynna Lloyd
Alcynna Lloyd is a real estate reporter and economic journalist at Business Insider whose work is distinct for treating housing as a core economic system people must navigate. She covers how housing markets, costs, and mobility shape everyday life decisions, connecting data on rents, home prices, and city trends with stories of people managing debt, multigenerational living, and moves abroad. Her beat centers on housing costs, renters, and household strategies, following renters pushing back against landlords and tracking “desperate home sellers” using concessions in unaffordable markets. A second strand of her coverage focuses on relocation, remote work, and cheap cities as everyday economic strategies. She regularly uses rankings and lists, such as best and worst states to buy a home and Rising Stars of Real Estate, and reads city housing and migration shifts as signs of broader economic change.
Alec Lazenby
Alec Lazenby covers how provincial politics and government decisions shape housing, real estate and the wider social fabric. He reports for The Vancouver Sun from the provincial legislature. His work examines HousingHub, middle-income rentals, affordability, stalled projects, empty condos, developer layoffs, municipal housing targets and land use. He also covers health, addiction, safer supply, involuntary care, water rights, resource management, Indigenous rights and Crown land. Lazenby connects policy language to specific buildings, rents, projects, services and people. He explains financial, regulatory and market pressures, then follows how institutions, professionals, developers, municipalities and affected communities respond. His reporting tests government goals against practical outcomes and shows how policy reversals, construction costs, interest rates and political accountability shape housing and public life.
Amir Ali
Amir Ali links housing, disputes, and oddball neighbourhood stories in case-based, street-level reporting for Daily Hive. He holds a senior editorial and writing role, listed on the masthead as part of Vancouver leadership and described as a staff writer. His core beat is real estate, especially the rental market and housing affordability, tracking rent ranges, market shifts, and how pressures land on people trying to stay housed. He also covers crime, civil tribunals, and mental health, explaining decisions and conflicts in plain language that focuses on timelines, behaviour, and outcomes. Ali writes offbeat hyperlocal features, traffic and transport disruptions, business, food, and general local news, often turning infrastructure, small businesses, and civic systems into tangible stories. A former radio producer, he brings tight pacing and clear stakes to written pieces and maintains an active social media presence as a broadcaster and writer.