The City of Ottawa has received a “D” on its efforts support affordable housing and to narrow the gap between the rich and poor, according to a report card issued by the Community Foundation of Ottawa.
Ottawa’s Vital Signs is an annual study that uses the input of local residents and organizations to assess the health of the city based on 11 core indicators. These include education levels, violent crime rates and voter turnout, among others.
“We’re presenting the facts, but it’s the community’s voice,” says Anita James, the foundation’s program manager of grants and community initiatives.
Residents are also asked to rank the issues in terms of priority. This year, the gap between rich and poor was singled out as the highest priority for action, with affordable housing rated second.
“It certainly points to the fact that residents in Ottawa do see it as a major concern and a priority,” says James.
“Housing and the income gap have consistently been two of our lowest graded.”
The report found that food distribution by the Ottawa Food Bank in 2008-09 was at an all-time high. During the year, nearly 4 million kilograms of food was handed out, with an average of 43,800 people requesting assistance from the bank every month.
The study also showed that in 2006, nearly 60 per cent of Ottawa households with incomes below $50,000 were spending 30 per cent or more of that income on housing. This proportion was higher than the provincial and national average.
“When we really step back and look at it, people on low incomes have very serious trouble finding and keeping affordable and stable housing in our city,” says Marion Wright, chair of the Alliance to End Homelessness.
She says what is particularly troubling is that the 2006 census showed that roughly 70,000 Ottawa residents had annual incomes below $31,900.
“The gap between the rich and the poor is increasing, and the increase of new and affordable housing has been dismal,” she says.
She adds that for the past four years, the city council has failed to meet its goal of 500 new affordable housing units per year.
Wright says that overall, though, she was pleased with the commitments that many of the mayoral and councillor candidates made during the fall election campaign to reduce poverty and homelessness.
Centretown’s Beaver Barracks, a major new social housing development near the Canadian Museum of Nature, was highlighted during the campaign as a model for future developments.
Wright says her alliance estimates that to eradicate homelessness in Ottawa, approximately 1,000 affordable housing units would have to be built each year for the next 10 years.
During his campaign, Mayor-elect Jim Watson announced that he would commit $14 million in new funding to combat homelessness.
Ottawa is set to receive $23 million next year as a result of a provincial government upload of social service costs. Of this, Watson said, he would dedicate $5 million to expanding a rent-supplement program, which would provide low-income residents with more money to help cover the cost of housing.
He also said that $5 million would be committed to creating a fund focusing on new construction and renovations to supportive housing, and $4 million would go towards improvements and additions to low-income housing already available in Ottawa.
Watson confirmed in an email that this remains his intention.
“I, too, share (the foundation’s) concern about the lack of affordable housing in our city,” he said. “My commitment is to provide a total of $14 million new dollars to help provide additional affordable housing options for residents.”
Wright says that while $14 million seems like a lot of money, Ottawa residents need to consider the impact that not addressing these issues could have on low-income residents, homeless shelters, and agencies’ resources.
“If we help more of (these) people, what we end up doing is reducing the cost of the social burden,” she says.