By Carrie MacAfee
Community housing groups and municipal politicians don’t have high hopes for the future of social housing in Centretown.
On Jan. 1, 1998, the provincial government stops funding social housing and municipalities will be picking up the tab.
The change is only one financial responsibility the province is passing down along with services such as garbage collection, welfare, public safety and ambulance service. The province will continue to administer the programs without supporting the cost.
For the first time, cities such as Ottawa will be paying for housing programs designated for those with low incomes.
Catherine Boucher, executive co-ordinator of Centretown Citizens of Ottawa Corporation, says taking on the job of social housing will be a “heroic task” for municipalities.
The Centretown organization is a private, non-profit housing corporation which owns and manages over 1,200 units in downtown Ottawa.
Boucher says the situation has only become worse since the Conservatives took provincial power in 1995 and made it clear they were getting out of the housing business.
Across the province, 15,000 new housing projects were cancelled and the wait for new applicants jumped from two or three years to five.
Applicants for social housing in Ottawa can expect to wait five years for a spot to open up. There are currently 10,000 people already on the waiting list in Ottawa.
Boucher warns a potential housing crisis will be impossible to ignore as more of these people make city streets their home.
“It’s critical that politicians in our region and city be committed to maintaining our current levels (of housing),” she says.
Coun. Elisabeth Arnold cites Centretown housing as one of her main campaign platforms this election.
“It’s an important issue because housing takes a large proportion of people’s income. The need is greater and the supply is less.”
Boucher says the waiting list can only be reduced with construction of new housing — an unlikely event any time soon.
Arnold says creating more housing or reducing the waiting list is an unrealistic goal with limited funds. Instead, she’s pushing to save existing programs. In order to do so, she says municipalities should ask the province to transfer subsidies to help pay the $50 million cost which is one-quarter of Ottawa’s annual budget.
Arnold’s opponent, Kris Schimmel disagrees. While municipal and regional governments gain responsibility of new services, they will be giving up education and its massive cost.
Schimmel says municipal government will transfer money currently spent on education to other services.
He says trading education for housing is “a fair exchange between the province and municipalities. It won’t cost anything more.”