HOUSINGAGAIN-L Housing Again Bulletin No 31

[Catherine Nasmith <cnasmith@sympatico.ca>]

HOUSING AGAIN - Bulletin Number 31- April 17, 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.

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1. North End project in Halifax to go ahead after $1.4 million grant
from SCPI.
2. London city council to create a new housing department.
3. Bradshaw asserts she's in the 'homelessness' not the 'housing' business.
4. Toronto Separate School Board development charge.
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1. $1.4 million for Halifax Housing

After eight years of hard work from community partners and some major
setbacks, Halifax's Creighton Gerrish Development Association will
finally start building its North End project by the end of the month..
(Bulletin # 13 describes the background of this proposal.) The boost to
the project came in the form of $1.4 million funding from the federal
Supporting Community Partnerships Initiative (SCPI). The Province of
Nova Scotia will contribute an additional $160,000, the local Rotary
Club $50,000 and the United Way money to help tenants settle in. Canada
Housing and Mortgage Corporation has provided assistance with a $75,000
development loan, and the city of Halifax donated the land.

"We are so happy because we've been working on this for a long, long
time and we were getting bogged down," said Carol Charlebois, executive
director of the Metro Non-Profit Housing Association that had applied
for the loan. "It is going to allow us to do more than we thought we
were going to be able  to do originally."

The Creighton Gerrish Development Association is made up of four
organizations: Affordable Housing of Nova Scotia; Metro Non-Profit
Housing Society; Harbour City Homes and the Black Community Working
Group. It will act as the developer then turn-key it over to the Metro
Non-Profit Housing Association.

The group had originally planned to apply for a loan guarantee from the
province and take out a mortgage. Construction started a year ago but
stopped two days after the ground-breaking ceremony when workers found
the soil was contaminated a few feet below the surface. Given that
construction prices were steadily rising, it was a considerable setback.
.
But now, with the SCPI funding, Charlebois says her group does not have
to carry a mortgage, so it can use this money to support a community
support team that will service both residents of the development and
outreach to the North End community. 

The development is a 19-unit apartment building for low-income single
people plus a Housing Support Centre providing a drop-in, short-term
counselling, health resources and other programs, as well as office
space for the three-member community support team.

This is the first of five developments planned by the Creighton Gerrish
group. The next phase consists of six semi-detached homes for sale,
priced at around $90,000 each. The following phase include a 40-unit
condo structure of  two-three bedroom, two-floor stacked condos that the
group hopes will sell for under $80,000 each to people who currently
live in public or co-op housing. Next will be a multi-purpose centre
with computer labs, classrooms and a cultural facility. The last stage
consists of  six small 'starter homes' for sale.

Grant Wanzel, president of the Creighton Gerrish Development Association
and a professor of architecture at Dalhousie University, says the
development has great strategic importance both for the neighbourhood
and for the city. The neighbourhood was badly damaged by a 1960s urban
renewal program that saw about half its population move away and since
it has become almost the sole repository of public and social housing in
the city. Eighty-seven per cent of the households in the area are rental.
 
"This is a major consolidation of many gains that have already been made
in this neighbourhood," he said. "This is not just about housing, it's
about social, economic and cultural development."

As a grassroots organization, Wanzel said people involved in the project
have been experimenting will all kinds of different partnerships, and
ways of working with the community. All of the consultants are paid in
full, and Wanzel said his group has some of the best lawyers,
construction managers, engineers and architects in the province. On the
other hand, Wanzel said this project only represents 72 units that will
have taken his group 10-12 years to produce, once they are finished. At
this rate, with two million households in Canada in core need, it would
take 400 years to solve the housing crisis for low-income people.

"We need a national housing policy and we need a commitment of federal
funds to see that it happens," he said. "And if the government decides
it should be delivered locally, there will have to be a re-investment in
community resource groups."

**************
2. London city council has new housing department

London city council has decided to set up its own housing department
with the creation of new affordable housing identified as one of its 
responsibilities.

Councillor Susan Eagle says this move ensures that affordable housing
initiatives will not be lost in the downloading of social housing to the
municipalities. London City council had considered establishing a social
housing board but this raised concerns that the needs of non-profit and
co-operative housing ventures would be ignored. A housing department
allows the different housing provider groups to be dealt with as unique
entities. 

"Right now cities are just so overwhelmed with the details of
downloading that the issue of affordable housing has sort of been put on
hold," said Eagle. "But at the same time all our waiting lists have
grown and the usage of our shelters has increased."

The next step, she says, is to make sure the federal government delivers
on its promise to provide money for housing.

3. Bradshaw asserts she's in the 'homelessness' not the 'housing' business.

At an 'invitation only' meeting with front-line workers from across the
country late last month, Claudette Bradshaw, federal co-ordinator on
homelessness, asserted that she is in the homelessness, not the housing, 
business.

Cathy Crowe, a street nurse with the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee,
said Bradshaw wanted only to talk about the 'chronically homeless,'
people she defined as those with mental illness or addiction problems.

"She was not willing to accept the concept that nearly everyone made
homeless in this country becomes chronically homeless because there is
no housing." Crowe said that Bradshaw asserted that over the next three
months she wants to bring both the private sector and the provinces on
board to deal with this homelessness, and was adamant that the federal
government would not be committing to a social housing program until it
saw those two factors present.

Crowe attended the two-day meeting last month with seven other
representatives from Vancouver, Edmonton, Montreal, St. John's and a
native health organization.  Bradshaw's press secretary David Klug said
he doesn't know if anything public will result from the meeting. The
policy advisor who attended was away from the office until after The
Bulletin's deadline. Klug did assert, however, that the meeting was a
frank and formal discussion on homelessness, not on housing, a
responsibility that falls under Public Works and Government Services
Minister Alfonso Gagliano's portfolio.

"Minister Bradshaw does not have the authority to walk in on that issue
under the terms of this program," he said.  "She can discuss
transitional housing, but not affordable housing."

For Cathy Crowe, the meeting was a 'wake up call' that she says has
furthered her resolve to 'keep hammering away' at Ottawa for a social
housing program. "The only good thing to come out of the meeting is that
we have learned that within 24 hours of our being there that the housing
proposal that was to go to cabinet has been postponed and there are
rumours that they are increasing the allotment of money involved."

Stay tuned

**********

4. Toronto Separate School Board Development Charge

The Toronto Separate School Board has received many calls about its new
development charge by-law that refuses to exempt affordable housing.

Joe Ruscitti, supervisor of planning and facilities at the school board,
said his department has made copies of the by-law available for those
who want them. He is asking those who are interested to pick them up at
the board offices.

The by-law, passed March 22, charges people who build new residential
structures in the city $1,236 per unit. Ruscitti says the board's hands
are essentially tied by the fact that the province's Education Act and
the Ontario regulation that governs how education development charges
work, do not permit the separate school board to differentiate between
different types of housing units. But he added the development charge
by-law expires in one year, allowing trustees to re-visit the situation
and address issues from affordable housing advocates and the rest of the
development industry.

***********

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