More questions than answers

In a report issued yesterday, ONPHA (Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association) says that lower homeownership rates are about to create additional pressure on an already-strained rental housing market. The report, Where’s Home? 2013, released in conjunction with the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada (CHF), Ontario Region, says the rate of construction of purpose-built rental housing collapsed to a 60-year low in the mid-1990s and never recovered, and yet demand is anticipated to increase an additional 15,000 to 20,000 rental units per year.

Such factors will make Ontario’s affordable housing “crisis” worse, according to ONPHA executive director Sharad Kerur in an accompanying release. “Growing competition for limited rental units will drive up rents, making it even harder for low and moderate income Ontarians to afford a roof overhead.”

The report says that an income boom between 1996 and the onset of the 2008 recession failed to influence poor and moderate-income Ontarians, leaving them further behind and widening the wage gap. The report says 20 per cent of Ontario households pay more than the recommended-by-expert 30 per cent of their income on rent, or live in homes that are too small or in disrepair.

In spite of unprecedented residential construction in the last decade, the creation of purpose-built rental housing has been minimal, and in higher-end markets. While investor-owned condominiums are another source of new rental housing, they are often too small to suit family living. ONPHA says there are more than 156,000 households on social housing waiting lists, and Ontario lost 86,000 rental units between 1996 and 2006.

“All Ontarians need robust, dedicated programs that will enable the non-profit, co-operative, and private markets to build the homes that our province needs for its economy to grow,” said CHF Ontario manger of government relations Harvey Cooper.

Do they? Is affordable housing a right? Who pays for it? What’s your gut reaction?

It’s a loaded issue. If you bring it up at a cocktail party, you’re likely to get variations on two heated views: “screw them, it’s not my problem” or “yes, yes, yes, we need better programs” — more or less equally divided down party lines.

But it’s far from a cut and dried issue. Some in the interest of playing devil’s advocate, and some from the deeper recesses of my heart and brain (but I won’t tell you which are which), ponder these …

We make it impossible for the square pegs to fit into our round holes. What if technology has passed you by, you simply have no aptitude for it, and will never be able to use it effectively as part of your living? You’ve been thrown out of the workforce for that reason, and anything you were ever good at has now been automated or outsourced. You’d like to hunt, fish, live off the land, but we make that virtually impossible in the city, and you’re too old to go off into the country alone and grow your own food, and have no place to do so even if you weren’t. Should you qualify for low-income housing?

You paid $600,000 for your market value condo. How do you like it if the guy across the hall paid $280,000 for the same unit through subsidization? You don’t know his circumstances, or how he scored the unit. Nobody consulted you. Are you resentful?

You don’t really want that low-income family in your building. The mom seems OK but you’re sure the kid is into drugs. You think all low-income families should be put together, like a Regent Park of old, which, even though doomed to fail, sits better with you than just mixing the low-income units into the others. After all, you work hard for everything you have. Why should they have what you have? You can always just avoid going into a bad neighbourhood, but how are you supposed to avoid it if it’s all spread out?

Is income alone enough to qualify a family for low-income housing? What if the parents are drug or alcohol addicted? What if they just keep making bad choices? What if they’re toxic together, a bad influence on their own kids, and doomed to be multi-generational burdens on society? Are there people who can’t be helped? Should social housing be contingent on making better choices? On lifelong learning? Should there be a component of ongoing accountability?

With development charges on new homes in the GTA absolutely exorbitant (nearly $118,000 average for a single-family detached home), middle-income buyers simply can’t afford to buy houses in Toronto. If you’re rich enough, it’s not your problem. Or is it? Who is going to do the tasks you want done but don’t want to do yourself? Like nursing? Policing? Pothole-filling? Teaching? Like a million other jobs that are necessary, honest, and valuable but pay too little? If we lower development charges, are we just making developers richer? Where does all that money go? Who’s administering it?

What if, through circumstances (and it happens every day), you find yourself in sudden need of affordable housing. Let’s say you were married to someone who offered a certain lifestyle, and then he died suddenly, and you find out your entire lifestyle was nothing but debt. Now you’ve got two kids, no income, haven’t worked in years, and have nowhere to sleep. You manage to get subsidized housing. What happens when your circumstances change? You get a great job? Get remarried? Do you give up the awesome, rent-controlled apartment? Sneakily sublet it to a friend or your kid? How do you know if you do give it up, it won’t just pass onto someone who plans to sublet to his friends?

What if you have a child with a severe disability, and instead of leaving her in care, you’ve decided to downgrade your income from a demanding but high-paying corporate job to a less demanding but considerably lower paying, flexible job. Now you can’t afford housing, but it’s your choice. You have the ability to make more; you just choose not to. Whose problem is that?

What if you get sick just long enough to derail your finances? What if you suspect your local agency is mishandling funds or giving the choicest apartments to friends? Who is ultimately responsible for addressing the lack of affordable housing? What’s your role?

One thing I do know is that any of our circumstances could change at any time, and we don’t know what it’s like to walk in another man’s (or woman’s) shoes until we’ve done it. Would your feelings change if your circumstances did?