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HOUSING AGAIN – Bulletin Number
76
November 2, 2004
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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Community Spotlight:
Inspiring initiatives in spite of scarce development
dollars
Feature: November 22 –
5th National Housing Day
News Briefs:
Toronto’s Vital Signs
2004; new service at CHFC; FCM’s
strategy for developing affordable housing.
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Community
Spotlight: Development capacity
at its best: Inspiring examples of building affordable housing
Housing
advocates worry that in spite of all the talk about homelessness, there are
diminishing numbers of people with the will and know-how to make it happen.
Development dollars are scarce and volunteers are growing weary of all the talk
and little action. But, across the country, there are inspiring examples of
creative, innovative approaches to addressing the ever-increasing need for
affordable housing. There are people who despite the long hours, risks and
growing despair on the streets, are finding solutions…
After barely six months into a process that normally takes years, St. Clare’s Multifaith Housing Society
in Toronto has
purchased a hotel/apartment building and turned it into affordable housing for
96 people. The non-profit group, which managed to develop the proposal without
the assistance of development capacity funding, didn’t need to seek re-zoning
for the project, so their plans weren’t stalled in nasty public meetings, or
expensive and time-consuming appeals.
“The building is currently used to rent rooms to singles by the week or
month,” said Jon Harstone, one of
the key organizers of the project. “We heard about the building last March and
confirmed the sale the first week of October, which means by Christmas people
will be able to leave shelters and move into safe and secure
housing.
Brian Burch, another
organizer with St. Clare’s, said that creating this kind of opportunity is
difficult without development capacity funding. “Housing groups are disappearing
along with the much-needed skill set,” Burch said. “But, it’s not only
development dollars that are needed. We also need development
will.”
St. Clare’s purchased the building for $6.5 million. They received $2.7
million from the federal government’s Supporting Communities Partnership
Initiative for the homeless, $300,000 from
Toronto’s Let’s Build Program and
another $500,000 from the city’s Capital Revolving Fund. The remainder of the
costs were secured with a conventional mortgage, Harstone
said.
In
2000, St. Clare’s purchased another apartment building, which Levitt Goodman Architects converted
into 51 apartments for single adult tenants. But, St. Clare’s wanted to expand
the project in 2003 and was faced with the problem of no available and
affordable land.
Architect Dean Goodman
discovered that the structure was originally designed to support two additional
floors and figured out that pre-manufactured housing units could be made to fit
on top of the four-story building. Construction of the units will take place in
a factory and are designed around an exterior landscaped courtyard located on
the roof of the existing building. The new 26 units will be placed on top of the
building like a Lego block proving that good quality and good design is possible
in “mobile architecture,” Goodman said.
Mark Salerno, CMHC district manager for the GTA, told
Housing Again that development capacity funding programs, both seed money
and training dollars, is “in the infancy stage” and more is needed to help
groups develop proposals. He also said that
Ontario is “anxious to get back
into funding affordable housing.”
But, in the meantime groups like St. Clare’s have to be creative to make
things happen at the conception stage. And there are lots of other examples
across the country.
Gorge Road Properties in
Victoria recently
celebrated the opening of Waterway Apartments, a former motel renovated into 49
units of affordable housing.
Transitional and Supportive
Housing Services of York Region have begun development in East Gwillimbury of 15
two-bedroom, self-contained pre-fab homes that will be used for families in need
of emergency housing. The small buildings will be placed on an existing site
that provides emergency shelter.
Central Urban Metis Federation Inc. reclaimed three worn-down
apartment buildings in
Saskatoon and using
renovation dollars rejuvenated them into 36 beautiful, affordable
homes.
Le Saint-Charles
building opened recently in
Beauceville, which is providing 20 new housing units for low-income
families – an example of the three levels of government supporting community
partners to make affordable housing happen. The Kinkora Development project in
Winnipeg is another good
example – they purchased a 28-unit apartment building, which they will turn into
affordable housing for immigrants and refugees.
And many housing advocates
are more than willing to share their skills and expertise. On October 22,
the Advocacy Centre for Tenants
Ontario and the University of
Toronto’s Centre for Urban and Community Studies sponsored a free community
forum in Toronto for people
interested in learning about the cost of developing and operating affordable
housing. The seminar featured two panels of experts from co-ops, non-profit and
private rental housing organizations, along with development consultants.
Feature: November 22nd is the 5th National Housing
Day
In
1999, November 22 was declared a day for Canadians to recognize the need for
affordable housing. This year, communities across the country will again
organizing events, walks, conferences, email campaigns and media releases to
acknowledge that housing is a human rights issue. Here is a sampling of
initiatives across the country…
The National Anti-Poverty
Organization campaign is organizing a “Homelessness is a Human
Rights Violation” post card campaign and electronic (email) message system
asking Minister Fontana to create/implement a national housing strategy as
per the UN's recommendations. NAPO plans to deliver
the cards and messages to Minister Fontana on or close to Nov.
22.
www.napo.org
Front d'action populaire en réaménagement (FRAPRU) (in
Quebec) is organizing a series of regional
housing actions as well as a media conference in
Ottawa.
www.frapru.qc.ca
The Alliance to End Homelessness (in
Ottawa) is hosting a community forum
on homelessness, with keynote speaker Dr. Stephen Hwang. Topics include:
perspectives and experiences of adolescents in family shelters; promoting social
inclusion through a harm reduction approach; investigating diversity among the
homelessness population; effectiveness of occupational therapy with people at
risk of homelessness; youth at risk; vulnerable women; and rent control - its
impact on affordable housing. www.spcottawa.on.ca
The Toronto Disaster Relief Committee has been gathering
information on its website of community events across the country. TDRC also
hosts monthly vigils. On October 24, in honour of Floyd Honey, TDRC held the
first annual walk to raise funds to end homelessness and will host a “sleep-over” at city hall on
November 21. www.tdrc.net
The Alberta Housing
Coalition is hosting a “HomeFest,” a musical event to raise awareness
about the housing and homelessness crisis in
Canada on
November 14th in Edmonton, to be
followed by a rally. www.albertahousingcoalition.ca
The CORE Homeless
Association (North Bay)
is organizing a “speaking convention” at the Legion Hall on November 22.
Councillor Peter Papp has agreed to come to North
Bay to speak and Rev Terry O'Conner will also be a guest
speaker. Start time for the event is 2:00
pm with a light lunch served for the price of $25. Monique Smith MPP
for Nipissing has been invited. Topics will include housing, homelessness and
poverty. www.corehomeless.faith.at/
Canadian Housing and Renewal
Association launched
their newly designed website on November 1, which includes development related
resource information.
www.chra-achru.ca
NEWS
BRIEFS:
The
Toronto
Community Foundation
released its report, Toronto’s
Vital Signs 2004,
revealing a portrait of a growing community with considerable strengths, but
struggling to ensure its successes benefit all citizens. www.tcf.ca
The Co-operative
Housing Federation of Canada has added a feature to
their website to help people interested in moving into co-operative
housing. The new feature provides mailing addresses, e-mail and website
information for individual co-ops, as well as application
information.
http://members.chfc.ca/cooplocator/eng/about_3.asp.
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities released Moving Forward: Refining the FCM
recommendations for a National Affordable Housing Strategy in
October.
http://www.fcm.ca/newfcm/Java/housing.pdf
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