By Corinne Smith
In 1995, Mike Harris promised Ontario voters that if elected, his government would get the province out of the housing business.
It wasted no time flattening a dynamic affordable housing network, cutting funding for half-built houses, canceling spending on new projects, gouging the budget for existing social housing, while deregulating provincial rent control.
Later, Harris’ government closed the deal by changing the housing act, and downloading the cost and administration of social housing to cash-strapped municipalities.
Social housing programs had already suffered at the hands of the federal government in 1993, when federal housing funding was cut from the budget. But the mortal blow was Ontario’s Social Housing Reform Act, marking the end of more than 50 years of public commitment to affordable housing. Today, it’s a funding wasteland.
In this transformed landscape, a new housing project in Centretown deserves celebration. City Living, a non-profit housing corporation, will convert an old warehouse and build townhouses in a vacant lot on Bell and Willow streets, without a single penny of government funding.
The “Willow project” will add 50 units of permanent affordable housing to Ottawa, the first major social housing development to materialize here since government funding dried up six years ago.
But 50 new units will barely skim the surface of Ottawa’s housing crisis.
Ottawa’s vacancy rate is 0.7 per cent, the lowest in the country. That means for every 1,000 rental units, only seven are available to rent, and what’s available is more expensive than ever before. The average rent in Ottawa climbed 12.6 per cent between 1999 and 2000.
Today, affordable apartment hunting in Ottawa is like playing the lottery. For the 14,000 households signed up on Ottawa’s social housing waiting list, whose average yearly income is below $20,000/year, the five-year wait is a gamble between home and homelessness.
Most people waiting for social housing scrape by, Ottawa’s housing advocates say. Families double up in apartments, live in one-bedroom or bachelor apartments, or stay with elderly relatives in senior homes.
Single people may couch surf, relying on friends and acquaintances to offer hospitality for a few nights at a time.
Others pay high rents they can’t afford, creating situations where regular living expenses break the bank.
Margaret Singleton, a general manager at City Living, says she hears regularly from families who pay anywhere from 60 to 80 per cent of their monthly income to rent.
To cope, they may rely on food banks to eat. Or they fall behind on rent and bills. Being short on rent means fighting eviction. That can lead to homelessness.
It’s the most glaring symptom of the current housing crisis. Ottawa shelters report they are full every night, with overflow areas set up in cafeterias and gyms to keep up with the demand. Single people use them more often than anyone else, but a growing number of families are turning to shelters as a last resort.
It’s no coincidence that the scarce supply of affordable housing in Ottawa comes in the wake of slash-and-burn housing policy reform doled out by the Ontario and federal governments in the mid 1990s.
While they have abandoned their responsibilities to affordable housing, the federal and provincial governments haven’t ignored homelessness.
When homelessness was declared a national disaster in 1999, the federal government created a $783 million Homelessness Initiative fund to support emergency shelters, transitional and short-term housing, and other services to help people without a home of their own.
But it’s a band-aid solution that pads the fall of those hit hardest by housing shortages, and masks their struggle to find a home they can afford.
The only way to defuse the housing crisis and break the cycle of homelessness is with a national housing program coordinating federal, provincial and municipal government resources. And it doesn’t have to be a money-losing proposition.
The proof is Ottawa Living. It owns and manages 1,500 housing units across Ottawa, built with federal and provincial capital funding for social housing in the 1950s and 1960s.
Today, those properties are mortgage-free, allowing Ottawa Living to offer housing with affordable rent, while generating surpluses to fund new developments like the Willow project.
A long-term commitment to affordable housing can be a safe investment, with promising returns over time.
In August, Minister of Public Works Alfonso Gagliano met with his provincial counterparts to discuss a national housing strategy, and there was talk of a one-time capital grant program for affordable housing.
But they only decided to reconvene Nov. 28-30 in Quebec City for another round of discussions — on the eve of the unveling of the federal budget. Affordable housing advocates say it is time for the government to commit to a national housing program, before the budget is confirmed. Without it, the waiting list in Ottawa will only continue to grow.