Ottawa has been balancing the city budget on the backs of the poor, according to researchers from Carleton University.
The university’s Centre for Urban Research and Education tracked budget expenses going back to 2009 and found community and social services trailed other areas, such as emergency services.
Social housing has been one of the most neglected areas, the analysis showed. Its share of budget spending has fallen by almost one percentage point over the past five years, sitting at 7.9 per cent in 2015.
“They’ve come nowhere near close to addressing the level of need that exists across the city,” said researcher Steve Pomeroy, the author of the report.
There is a massive backlog of requests for social housing funds, not only in Ottawa but, across the province.
Ottawa currently sets aside $19 million in the annual budget for social housing repairs —$22 million less than what industry standards are currently recommending according to the city’s own staff.
Ottawa social housing providers have requested more than 200 repair projects at a price of $38 million, but funding shortfalls ensure most won’t get done.
The provincial government’s decision to transfer its social housing stock to municipalities in 2001 continues to pose a fundamental problem, said Pomeroy.
“When they made that transfer, a lot of those properties had been built in the ’60s and ’70s,” Pomeroy explained. “They didn’t transfer assets, they transferred liabilities.”
Ottawa is approaching a cycle when a large number of those units are going to require upgrades and repairs, according to Ray Sullivan, executive director at Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation.
“What we do over the next five to 10 years will decide whether we fall into crisis mode like the City of Toronto,” he said.
In Toronto, where the social housing stock is slightly older than in Ottawa, there is a $2.6-billion repair backlog and 94,000 households on the social housing waitlist, according to a report from the Toronto Star.
In Ottawa, there are 10,312 households on the waitlist for social housing at an average wait time of five years, according to the Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association.
There’s a further 40,000 households in core housing, Sullivan said. Those are households that are otherwise eligible for the waitlist, but the prospect of waiting five years is beyond practical.
Approximately 20 per cent of renters in Ottawa are paying more than half of their gross income on their housing costs.
“Imagine the choices that leaves,” Sullivan said. “In a time of year like this you might be looking at a single mom who’s thinking, ‘OK, I have to pay my rent. Does that mean I can’t afford school supplies for my kid?’”
Municipalities can expect some relief as the federal government has allocated $2.3 billion in its budget for affordable housing to become available.
City staff recently announced $16 million in federal funding for repairs to the social housing stock. Gloucester-Southgate Coun. Diane Deans called it a much needed and welcome investment.
“This is great news for the social housing sector, which is in dire need of increased funding to make sure that our social housing stock is kept in a good state of repair,” she said during a committee meeting on Sept. 15.
A further $19 million in federal funding will go towards the development of new affordable housing options in Ottawa over the next two years.
The city needs to keep pace with its previous investments if it hopes to meet a goal of eliminating homelessness by 2023, said Mike Bulthuis, executive director at the Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa. “This is not the time to be cutting back because other levels of governments are doing more.”
Bulthuis hopes the 2017 budget will reflect a new funding approach for community and social services.
“We’re so locked in to this idea that we can’t raise taxes by more than ‘x’ per cent,” Bulthuis said, referring to Mayor Jim Watson’s commitment to hold property tax increases at two per cent.
“Our starting point has to be: What is the level of need and how can we respond to that need?”
Citizens are getting their chance to express their views of the budget as public consultations will continue on until Oct. 18. A full list of dates and times are available at the City of Ottawa website.