HOUSINGAGAIN-L Housing Again Bulletin No. 22

[Catherine Nasmith <cnasmith@sympatico.ca>]

HOUSING AGAIN - Bulletin Number 22
November 1, 2000

A twice-monthly electronic bulletin published on what people are doing
to put housing back on the public agenda in Ontario, across Canada and
around the world. Our web site is http://www.housingagain.web.net
* * * * * * * * * *
In this bulletin:

1. Let's Build- New Plans A foot in Toronto
2. Bill 128 - Downloading Nightmare
3. November 22 - Day of Action
4. Visit our site

* * * * * * * * *

1. LET'S BUILD


More people have died on the street in Ontario than the number of
affordable housing units built this year. That's probably not news to
most readers of Housing Again, but Toronto's recently established Let's
Build program is news. Created in response to the Golden Report, it's
mandate is to encourage and facilitate construction of long-term,
affordable housing,with rental working agreements between the city and
the project operators.

It's true, not a shovel has hit the ground yet, but it should happen
soon on one site, and seven other projects have city council approval.
With a number of sites released by the city for affordable housing, and
financial assistance from the city's $11 million Capital Revolving Fund,
Let's Build's current portfolio should produce about 500 new affordable units.

Peggy Burn of Let's Build does not want to aggrandise what the program
can do beyond making easier  - or even possible - the work of groups
that have concrete affordable housing project plans. "It is a start,"
she says. "Next, we have to get private sector help. We have to make it
attractive for  them. We have been approached.  And we are having
discussions with the province to make it possible to bring in the
private sector so that we can really  deal with the housing problem."

Four sites, all on land contributed by the city, are close to the
construction stage.

A site at Lakeshore and Windermere, proposed by Fred Victor Mission
Inc., faced considerable neighbourhood opposition but is going ahead
with geared-to-income units.

At Northcliffe and Eglinton, where land was provided  by the Toronto
Public Library to the city, the non-profit Toronto Housing Company has 
permission to build 56  bachelor, one and two bedroom apartments.

The Ghana Amansie Canadian Multicultural Association has won approval
for an unusual proposal at Finch and Weston Road with forty-eight units:
thirty three-bedroom townhouses; twelve three-bedroom apartments and six
two-bedroom apartments. These unusually large affordable units are
desperately needed in this area where there are many large recent
immigrant families, many among the Somali population. Peggy Burn called
this a particularly "interesting proposal involving a tithing process"
that is similar to a rent-to-own arrangement.

The project furthest along in the process, from the aboriginal-based
Frontiers Foundation, is at 419-425 Coxwell, with seventy-four one and
two-bedroom rental units. Because of  the industrial 'history' on the
land, Requests for Proposals for land clean-up contracts have been sent
out and the Purchasing department is awaiting bids.

Three other projects are at more preliminary stages. Trellis Housing was
trying to initiate a twenty-four unit project at 647-657 Lawrence Avenue
West before Let's Build existed. Now, with crucial money from the
Revolving Capital Fund, Trellis is moving forward.

Two non-profit groups, Out of the Cold and Darchei Noam, have been
struggling for several years to establish seventeen rental units based
on Social Assistance shelter allowance and seven more at market rates.
Burns says they expect to have a contractual agreement by the end of the month.

Under the name Nuctuct, two United Church groups have united in
Willowdale on Cummer Avenue to create housing on a parking lot. With
city help Nuctuct has sufficient money to proceed, although this is the
least advanced of the seven projects.

Finally - for the moment - Canadian Legion 613 came to the city with
land and a proposal put together by Legion representatives and
consultants, to provide seniors housing which will use market rent units
to help cover affordable rental unit costs.

As Peggy Burn says, it is a start, and those brief descriptions belie
the thousands of hours of dedication, planning and frustration behind
each of those seven successful applications in difficult times.

2. BILL 128--DOWNLOADING NIGHTMARE

The Harris government "is taking a huge step backwards with Bill 128,
the Social Housing Reform Bill," says Michael Shapcott, president of the
Ontario Co-op Housing organisation. "We're going back to social housing
as it was after the war. It's all just a book balancing exercise.

"It will be reversed eventually because the municipalities won't be able
to sustain what's being dumped on them by the province."

At the moment no one completely understands exactly what is being dumped
where because of the horrendous complexity of the 115 page bill now
awaiting only two days of public hearings. Shapcott suspects only one or
two government members even understand the legislation. Most don't
realise the seriousness, nor the effect of the bill, just as they did
not understand the importance of the Ministry of the Environment and
water quality regulations until people died in Walkerton. With lobbying
from stakeholders, however, some back benchers are starting to ask
questions about Bill 128, an unthinkable act in the past.

Opposition to the bill  is unanimous from all groups involved in
affordable housing. Oakwood Mayor Ann Mulvale, president of the
Association of Municipalities of Ontario worries about all the
"unanswered questions' around making municipalities financially
responsible for all social housing.

"The wider issue," she said, " is that if social housing is only funded
by land taxes, how can we maintain and increase funding to meet the
needs of aging housing stock and an aging population?  We have enough
concerns and controversy just over the location of public housing. You
will not get a civic government elected to support housing now that it
depends on municipal property taxes."

That virtually destroys any hope of substantial increases in the
affordable housing stock.

"And in a practical sense," Mulvale continues, "the G.T.A. would have to
begin with massive investment in mass transit before it could build the
housing required, in areas where we could afford to put it."

Michael Shapcott believes the entire downloading issue is a result of
provincial take-over of education from the municipalities. Now, he says,
"the province is just tossing bones to the municipalities which are
taking on huge costs and responsibilities.

"It's a government-created fiction that Bill 128 will simplify things.
Instead of one ministry there will be forty-seven Municipal Service
Managers plus what corresponds to upper tier municipality
administrations in regions or big cities. In the north, except for
Sudbury, District Social Services Administration Boards, created to run
Workfare will now run social housing as well." Provincial housing
bureaucrats will simply shift to new bosses.

Of forty-seven municipalities only 33 have co-ops, so smaller
municipalities in particular want a single, simplified administration.
"The complexity of the bill," says Shapcott, "partly stems from the
provincial attempt to create a one size fits all administration for
three fundamentally different housing types."

Scant provincial efforts to stimulate more social housing have failed.
In September they announced 10,000 new rent supplements to allow
landlords to charge tenants less without losing rental income
themselves. With rent ceilings imposed, the private sector ignored the
offer. Now the province has put the supplements into existing affordable
housing. That will only help needy people already in assisted housing
but will not increase the number of units, nor the number of people housed.

Involving the private sector is no an easy matter. The U.S. has never
succeeded and has simply rebuilt more expensive post war style housing
projects. In Europe, from 10 to 20% of all housing is subsidized. And in
Amsterdam the majority is subsidized. (See Alert on European Union)

Senior officials admit there are problems with the bill and that changes
are in the works, either withdrawing or amending some aspects. Shapcott
expects "serious changes" but inexplicable secrecy continues. No one
will say what the proposed amendments are. The government is cutting
itself off from all well-informed advice.

The act over-rides long term contracts of 250 co-ops and hundreds of
non-profits housing groups. Shapcott sees this as a serious threat to
the widely successful co-op movement. The province might dictate what
criteria are to be used to determine Rent Geared to Income decisions.
Management, previously part of each co-op, will either be contracted out
or be part of the Ontario Works administration.

And yet, as Mulvale points out, bureaucrats are speaking in terms of
only five years, which further destabilises any planning even after the
new system is revealed.

The die-hards around the premier may want to abandon government
participation in social housing but the province is chained to housing
because of liability for all the mortgages. It cannot allow complete
default without a financial disaster in the provincial coffers as well
as unthinkable effects on the province's economic standing.

Even the ideological position of hard-line conservatives has wavered -
the province is not downloading supportive housing for the mentally ill
which means that the province remains in the `housing business.'

People like Shapcott are in a difficult position. His organisation
strongly objects to down-loading, but has built up closer relations with
municipalities over the past few years in self-defence. All the
stakeholders are desperately trying to minimize damage by explaining and
negotiating with the Housing ministry staff at the same time deploring
the bill.

John Sewell, long time social activist, points out that not one single
recommendation in the Putting Housing Back on the Public Agenda position
paper has been taken up by the government. He sees Bill 128 as classic
Harris legislation like that used to destroy  the education and health
care systems: unhinge healthy financial arrangements, put
responsibilities on inappropriate organisations, then impose
conflicting, complex, regulations.

There are on average four references per page to "regulations" to be
created in camera by the cabinet and the minister without ever being
brought before the legislature. That adds up to more than 400 sets of
regulations. The provincial government remains in control of housing.

The Harris government, says Sewell, is "taking apart one of the major
institutions in Ontario, and placing it under the intolerable load of an
administration of Byzantine complexity."

"It is a huge expensive mistake," says Shapcott. "The government will
wear it for a long time."

And so will the homeless.

3. NOVEMBER 22  - NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION

With a federal election coming up and a national government with no
stated housing policy, November 22, the National Housing Strategy Day of
Action could make housing an election issue. The National Housing and
Homelessness Network provides ideas and plans to make people aware of
housing problems. All it needs is people to make it work. See Alerts for
detailed information

4. Visit our Site for Fresh News Right Away

Check out the 'Alerts' section of HousingAgain for fresh news up-dated
daily and important and interesting information. Point your browser to
http://www.housingagain.web.net then click on "alerts". Make sure to
check regularly for new information. If you have a news release or other
news, you can post it to the site by clicking on "post".

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