By Rebecca Roberts
Affordable housing has emerged as a top election concern among Centretown voters, especially for those who attended an informal meeting of Somerset Ward candidates.
The Somerset West Community Health Centre organized the Oct. 28 meeting, held in the basement of St. Luke’s Anglican Church on Somerset Street, to encourage the regulars at St. Luke’s Lunch Club, a parish-run free breakfast and lunch program, to meet with candidates.
Sue MacLatchie, a community developer with the centre, says the meeting was a pilot project launched to make it easier for those living in poverty to interact with the candidates.
Instead of organizing a traditional all-candidates meeting with a podium and microphones, the centre set up round tables and members of the public were encouraged to sit and chat with the candidates.
“It’s harder sometimes to get information into that community, so we thought this approach might be more friendly,” says MacLatchie.
Having access to politicians is a big issue for some residents. Carole-Anne McKinnon, a single mother living in public housing, says it should be easier to talk to the people in charge.
McKinnon says she’s unsuccessfully tried numerous times to contact city officials about public housing problems.
“There should be some sort of special line we can call,” she says, sitting in the Second Cup at Elgin and Lisgar streets.
“They act like they don’t even know you, even though you’ve left 20 messages.”
McKinnon says it’s difficult for single-parent families to find clean, safe places to live. She says she wishes more would be done for people who have had to rebuild their lives from scratch.
Maxine Strata, co-ordinator of St. Luke’s Lunch Club, says she was happy with the informal gathering of candidates at St. Luke’s, because the lunch club regulars were able to tell the candidates about their concerns with no limitations.
“They’re giving the candidates an education,” she says, mentioning that candidates may not have previously been aware of the day-to-day struggles of low-income residents.
Of the seven candidates running, four showed up. Green pamphlets were placed on each table with the message, “Make your vote count,” and the pamphlets suggested questions for people to ask. Approximately 30 people were there to speak with the candidates.
Regardless of the suggested questions, much of the conversation at each table revolved around affordable housing.
Candidate Diane Holmes suggested that more affordable housing projects are not being built because the projects don’t have the full backing of those at city hall.
“Every single project we have built in Centretown has been a fight,” says Holmes. “And if the councillors aren’t supportive, it doesn’t go through. So I’m very supportive (of affordable housing projects).”
At the Tim Horton’s at Bank and Gloucester streets, Dick Chiarelli, brother of Mayor Bob Chiarelli, says housing should be more affordable in Ottawa.
He also suggests the city should raise taxes to pay for services so that it doesn’t have to run a deficit.
“For the most part the services are adequate, we just have to pay for them,” Chiarelli says.
At the Second Cup at Elgin and Lisgar streets, Grant Dillenbeck suggests that social work agencies, such as shelters, need to have more stability. Dillenbeck says many agencies have no idea what their budgets will look like from year to year, so they cannot plan for the long-term.
“It’s unrealistic to expect agencies to function in that kind of situation,” he says.
Candidate Steve Sweeney says affordable housing is a “tough issue,” because on one hand housing needs to be affordable, but on the other hand you still need to accommodate developers who want to make a profit.
But Sweeney says there’s only a certain amount of profit developers should expect. “They’re not allowed to gouge the consumer,” he says. “We need protection in place to ensure that sort of practice doesn’t occur.”
Sweeney says residents he met with had legitimate concerns about degradation of services.
David MacDonald, another candidate at the St. Luke’s meeting, says he wanted to be at the meeting because affordable housing is an issue that’s very important to him.
“We’re losing the battle,” he laments.
He says he supports a proposal to encourage home ownership for first-time buyers to take pressure off the rental market.
Candidate Sotos Petrides also says he wants change. “I think that we should stop thinking the current model for affordable housing works,” he says. “It does not work.”
Petrides says he liked the opportunity to sit down and talk with residents who have concerns.
“People who live in these communities may not feel that they see their politicians enough,” he says.
MacDonald also says he liked the informal nature of the candidates meeting at St. Luke’s.
“I think it gives people the opportunity to approach the candidate and discuss what their issues are and not get up in front of an audience of hundreds of people,” like they would at a traditional all-candidates debate.
MacLatchie says she would organize a similar meeting for the next election.
“More than half the people here wouldn’t go to this type of event because they’d be intimidated.”