The Housing Again Bulletin, sponsored by Raising the Roof as a partner in Housing Again.
A monthly
electronic bulletin highlighting what people are doing to put housing back on
the public agenda in Ontario, across Canada and around the
world.
Our web sites are:
Housing Again
http://www.housingagain.web.net
<http://www.housingagain.web.net/> .
Raising the Roof Shared
Learnings on Homelessness
http://www.sharedlearnings.org /
http://www.liaison-itinerance.org
Raising
the Roof
http://www.raisingtheroof.org
If
you have any tips for the Bulletin please e-mail: annemariea@nrupublishing.com or haille6@rogers.com
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1. Community Spotlight: Settlement House Project Opens in
Halifax for Single Immigrant Men
2. Feature: Affordable Home
ownership programs one answer to housing crisis
3. News
Briefs:
§
Somewhere to Live or Something to Eat: Housing
Issues of Food Bank Clients in the Greater Toronto Area, August 2004
§
CMHC releases report on the state of
Canada’s housing, Sept. 2004
§
Research on Homelessness: 2004 Count of homelessness
in Calgary, July 2004
§
Where’s Home, July 2004, ONPHA report on homelessness
§
Home Truths: New Book Jointly Published by CCPA and Canadian
Housing and Renewal Association, September
2004
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1.
Community Spotlight: Settlement House Project Opens in
Halifax for Single Immigrant
Men
Halifax
In the fall of
2002, Metropolitan Immigrant Settlement Association (MISA) received funding from
the Supporting Community Partnerships Initiative SCPI (through Human
Resource and Skills Development Canada’s Homelessness Initiative) for a project
aimed at creating additional housing options for single immigrant men in
Halifax. The journey over the past
two years was taxing, organizers say, and sometimes unpredictable.
“We met with
both challenges and successes throughout our journey,” MISA executive director
Claudette Legault told Housing Again. “But, we wanted people to learn from our
efforts so we documented the journey, even all the warts and wrinkles.”
The two-year
process of opening the affordable housing project in
Halifax seemed almost impossible,
Legault said. But, on September 12,
2004, MISA officially opened a small four-unit building with eleven
bedrooms dedicated to responding to the housing needs of single immigrant men.
Thanks to a
partnership with the Maritime School of Social Work and the particular efforts
of Jonathan Ball, Home Made: A Snapshot of the MISA Settlement House
Project is a report, which captures some of the pains and joys and most
importantly, many of the educational moments over the past two years.
“We hope
others will be able to avoid the pitfalls and learn from the process we went
through so they can respond to poverty and homelessness in their communities,”
Legault said. “And we don’t want any marginalized populations pitted against
each other for funding.”
Organizers in
Halifax hope others will find the
report as interesting, informative and as helpful as it is to MISA as they
continue to build on the successes to date and strive to achieve their
goals.
A full copy of
the report can be downloaded at: http://www.misa.ns.ca/images/PDF’s/MISAHouse
Settlement
house co-coordinator, Vesna Mirosavljevic can be reached at 902-423-3607.
2. Feature:
Affordable
home ownership one answer to housing crisis
Innovative
community partnerships popping up
For most
low-income tenants, purchasing their own home is the last thing on their mind as
a solution to their struggles to keep a roof over their heads. But, new
innovative programs are popping up throughout the country that help families buy
their own home.
In
Hamilton,
Ontario, the recently launched Home Ownership
Affordability Partnership (HOAP) is helping tenants get out of city-owned public
housing and into home ownership. HOAP is a partnership between the City of
Hamilton, the Realtors Association
of Hamilton-Burlington, the Hamilton-Halton Home Builders’ Association and the
Threshold School of Building. Its goals are to promote affordable homeownership,
enhance the quality of existing housing stock, and build technology skills for
youth at risk.
Families are
selected based on need and ability to secure a zero percent mortgage. With help
from volunteers, families select and purchase a run-down or neglected home,
which is inexpensive because it is in need of repair.
The family
contributes to the redesign and renovation plan. As homeowners, they are
eligible for a Residential Rehabilitation Assistance Program grant from CMHC and
the house is used to train youth in building trades. Costs are kept low, Keith
Extance, Hamilton’s program manager
told Housing Again, by donations of cash and building materials.
“In some
cases, tenants pay rents that are higher than what they would pay if they bought
an affordable house in certain areas of
Hamilton,” said Extance. “In fact,
this type of program is perfect in the
Hamilton context. There are still
areas in the city, even though we are only 45 minutes from downtown
Toronto, where you can get a house
for $65,000 to $75,000.”
But, a house
at that price, he said, would certainly be in need of serious repair and
upgrading, which works perfectly for this program. The not-for-profit building
school teaches construction skills for clientele that includes youths-at-risk so
the program offers real life renovation opportunities.
“HOAP provides
classic win-win results,” Extance said. “Tenants have the opportunity to buy
affordable housing, social housing units are freed up, youths at risk get job
training, the city’s housing stock is upgraded and neighbourhoods
revitalized.”
A similar
program exists in Saskatoon,
Saskatchewan. The Affordable New Home
Development Foundation is a non-profit organization with a board of directors
drawn from the community, the
Saskatoon and Region Home Builders’
Association and the municipality. The purpose of the foundation is to identify
and assist people, who want to become homeowners, but are not able to access the
traditional housing marketplace.
The foundation
works with builders, land developers and governments to reduce the cost of new
homes and help secure down payments and mortgage approvals. They aim to help 100
families each year.
And there are
other housing programs, such as Aboriginal homeownership programs and home
renovation funds, as well as provincial programs that help low-income people buy
or renovate homes.
Unofficial
partners in the Hamilton program are
Scotiabank and CMHC, both of whom provide financing to the homebuyers for
purchases and renovations. Scotiabank manager Frank Passaro said the bank
qualifies prospective homebuyers under its zero down payment mortgage plan and
makes no special allowances for HOAP applicants.
“We work
within people’s capacities,” he said. “We look at their incomes, their financial
obligations and credit histories to see if they can carry the mortgage or
not.”
Home ownership
may not be the magic solution to the ever-expanding homelessness crisis, but it
is certainly one answer.
3. News
Briefs:
Somewhere
to Live or Something to Eat: Housing Issues of Food Bank Clients in the Greater
Toronto Area, August
2004.
By Michael
Oliphant & Jean-Philippe Thompson, Daily Bread Food Bank,
Toronto, August 2004. This
22-page paper looks at the key housing issues affecting food bank clients. Set
against the context of the welfare rate cut in 1995 and the Tenant Protection
Act (Ontario) in 1998, this paper
focuses on rent and income problems many food bank clients are facing now. PDF
format of the paper can be obtained by clicking: http://www.dailybread.ca/media/publications/Food%20Bank%20Housing%20Report.pdf.
CMHC releases report
on the state of Canada’s housing, Sept. 2004
Over the past
year, housing continued to be one of the faster growing sectors of the economy,
supported by high levels of new construction, renovation and sales of existing
homes according to the 2004 edition of the Canadian Housing Observer. While
broad improvements in housing affordability have been recorded since the
mid-1990s, the report says, 1.7 million households continue to face challenges,
especially the elderly, lone parents, immigrants and Aboriginal people.
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/mmnr/CMHC/
Research on
Homelessness: 2004 Count of homelessness in
Calgary, July 2004
A count of
homeless persons is conducted every two years by the City of
Calgary. This initiative provides
information that is used for the city's ongoing research and planning
activities, and is also published as a public report.
http://www.calgary.ca/docgallery/bu/corporateproperties/countofhomelesspersons_2004_fullreport.pdf
Where’s home, July
2004
Report released
July 21,
2004 by the Ontario
Non-Profit Housing Association and Co-op Housing Federation (Ontario Region)
finds that despite a recent rise in rental vacancy rates in several of the 21
Ontario municipalities
profiled, more than one-half million Ontarians are without affordable
housing.
http://www.onpha.on.ca/affordable_housing_initiatives/fight_resources/doc/whereshome2004.pdf
Home Truths: New Book Jointly Published by CCPA
and Canadian Housing
and Renewal Association, September 2004 / 82 pgs / ISBN
0-88627-404-4 / $12.00
Home Truths:
Why the Housing System Matters to all Canadians, by Andrew Jackson, Senior
Economist, Canadian Labour
Congress.
Canada's
housing system is falling short on many fronts. Housing assets are very
unequally distributed, and contribute to a disturbingly high level of overall
wealth inequality. We face serious and growing affordability problems. Home
Truths provides an over-arching economic and social policy framework, which
shows how centrally important housing is to the well being of all Canadians. It
makes a compelling case for public policy interventions to keep affordable home
ownership a continuing option for Canadians at all income levels.
Order form:
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/orderforms/hometruths.html
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