[homeles_ot-l] Ottawa Vital Signs Launch-Marion Wright, ATEH Chair was one of the panellists

[Lynne Browne]

FYI . . . the ATEH Chair's comments this morning:
 

Ottawa Vital Signs Launch Event, October 5, 2010


Marion Wright, Chair of the Alliance to End Homelessness, Event Panellist

The Ottawa Vital Signs report made housing one of its priorities for action this year. Community leaders and raters across Ottawa gave the current housing situation a "D" grade. For those of us who are parents or grandparents...we know how we would respond to a report card with a "D"!   That grade matches the Alliance to End Homelessness' understanding of affordable housing in Ottawa. 

Municipal and regional governments have been responsible since 2000 for the provision of affordable housing and its maintenance, as well as the administration of other housing programs such as rent supplements. What we see in this City is a constant increase in the home ownership stock and no new rental apartments. There were 5,813 new home starts in Ottawa in 2009 and 6,679 in 2008 (CMHC). Compare that to 88 new affordable units that were developed last year and the 134 in 2008. 

Next year one-time stimulus spending of federal, provincial and municipal dollars is expected to result in 751 new units. That would bring us up to 1806 units added since 2000 to the affordable housing stock, averaging 164 units a year over 11 years. We have seen very welcome dollars come into Ottawa to begin addressing repairs and maintenance of existing social housing stock, but clearly we need to increase the amount of affordable housing stock. 

The vast majority of individuals and families with low incomes rely on rental accommodation. Our City has relied mainly on provincial and federal dollars to create new affordable housing, contributing mainly by setting aside fees to assist non-profit housing providers.

We can, we ought and we must do better. Council of course has a responsibility to everyone living in Ottawa, no matter how high or how low our income is, whether we can buy a home or need to rent. 

There's very little room to maneuver when you scrape by on a low income. Over the past five years, here's been a 40% increase in the cost of a transit pass, an 11% rent increase for 2 bedroom apartments and Ontario Works for a single person went up $49 to $585 a month. It's no surprise that 7,445 individuals became homeless last year, including 1,317 children, or that families stayed in a shelter for an average of 64 days before finding a place or that over 10,000 households are on the social housing waiting list. 

Affordable housing is a city-wide problem affecting people across the city who relying on social assistance or disability benefits and who are among the working poor - 42.7 % of the families on low incomes were working poor in 2005. 

The 2006 Census tells us that 20% of Ottawa's population - that's 70,000 households - had annual incomes below $31,987. In fact 37,000 of those households had incomes under $25,000. How can anyone expect those individuals to move forward in this city if we don't create new rental housing? 

We know private developers have not responded to the need for affordable rental units. Perhaps... when Council takes more of a lead by increasing its own spending, private developers will be more interested.

The Alliance to End Homelessness set a target of 1000 affordable units annually to end homelessness in ten years. These need to be a mix of affordable housing options, such as rent geared-to-income units, supportive housing units and units at the lower end of market rents. They'd be rented by a broad cross section of people with low to modest incomes. 

A fair municipal government will have housing expenditures spread equitably across owners and renters and will recognize the needs of all income levels. 

The City Ottawa has an affordable housing strategy, a poverty reduction plan and an action plan on homelessness, but these policy plans have been undermined by extremely inadequate budget expenditures for creating new units. 

The human and financial cost of doing nothing more than we are on affordable housing is simply too great. We know that emergency shelter costs alone are slated to double over the next ten years, from $18 million today to over $37 million in 2020. More importantly, we know that the strength of local economies, the well-being of neighbourhoods and the health and welfare of each of us depends on having stable housing that we can afford. 

Our community is at a pivotal point now because the next City Council has a once in a lifetime opportunity to implement what is being called The Housing Answer. The Housing Answer would use at least $15 million annually to create and maintain affordable housing from the more than $80 million per year in costs that are being taken back by the province over the next seven years. The Housing Answer is an excellent way to begin putting the City's existing plans into action . . . and to move towards an equitable distribution of municipal resources.

This one concrete step could add up 1,000 affordable units and supportive housing units to the housing stock . . . or fix up to 1,500 existing units, boosting the quality of life and economic activity of thousands. That money might or might not leverage funds from the provincial and federal governments, but even if they don't come to the table, our community would see many more parents and children and many more single people in appropriate housing they can afford. 

In fact, we've sent 5 questions to all Municipal Candidates to gauge their commitment to affordable housing and using the freed up "upload dollars", to reducing shelter use, to acting on human rights in housing and to spending on poverty reduction and we intend to make their commitments public.

The social and economic health of our community depends on adequate and affordable housing for us all. We wish to express our appreciation to the Community Foundation of Ottawa for the Vital Signs Report 2010.  Thank you. 

 
Lynne Browne
Coordinator, Alliance to End Homelessness (ATEH) 
lbrowne at ysb.on.ca 
Temporary Phone #:  613-241-1573, ext 205
Mailing address: 147 Besserer St., Ottawa ON  K1N 6A7 
www.endhomelessnessottawa.ca <http://www.endhomelessnessottawa.ca/>  
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