Toronto City Council’s Executive Committee will be asked on Tuesday to approve a three-year plan that will see most of the $108 million that the city will receive from the federal and provincial governments over the next three years allocated to housing allowances to help low and moderate-income households pay the high cost of rents in Toronto. Under the federal-provincial housing program that expires in 2014, the city expects to receive $44.5 million in fiscal 2012 and the same amount in fiscal 2013, and $19.3 million in the final year.

Access to affordable housing is one of the most important determinants of health. The Wellesley Institute’s Precarious Housing in Canada outlines recent research that links housing and health. The “toxic trio” of housing, inequality and poor health are joined in a vicious circle, as noted by research from the Wellesley Institute and others.

The Wellesley Institute has warned that gutting Toronto’s Affordable Housing Office undermines the ability of Toronto to deliver on its effective ‘housing-first’ approach to ending homelessness. Toronto’s affordable housing wait list hit another new record in December at 82,138 households, and vacancy rates in the city’s private rented sector plunged last year. Both underline the urgent need for new affordable housing supply in Toronto.

Of the $108.3 million in total, the city can use up to $5.4 million to help Toronto’s Affordable Housing Office deliver the funding programs and work with landlords and housing providers.

As part of its 2012 budget, Toronto City Council considered a plan that would rapidly reduce the funding for new affordable housing – dropping from 1,502 new homes in 2011 to less than 300 homes in 2014.

The proposal at Executive Committee would see the $103 million federal / provincial housing investment (after the city’s $5.4 million share is deducted) spent on:

• Housing allowances – $60 million (59%)
• Housing repairs – $20 million (19%)
• New affordable rental housing – $16.4 million (16%)
• Affordable home ownership – $6.6 million (6%)

Toronto City Council’s Executive Committee meets on Jan. 24^th to consider an unprecedented recommendation from Toronto Community Housing Company (TCHC) to sell-off 675 buildings that include 740 affordable homes. The scheme comes at a time when Toronto’s affordable housing wait list sets new records month after month, and the vacancy rate in the private rental sector is dropping sharply. TCHC says that it needs the cash to pay for a huge capital shortfall created by the federal and provincial governments when they downloaded social housing stock to the city a decade ago. TCHC’s fiscal woes got worse earlier this week when Toronto City Council approved a 2012 operating budget that includes a $6 million cut to the city subsidy to the affordable housing agency.

TCHC provides a home to more than 164,000 Torontonians, among the poorest and most vulnerable households in the city. Research by the Wellesley Institute and others demonstrates the clear links between good housing and good health. Poor housing is linked to increased illness and premature death, while a good homes provides a stable base for health lives and strong communities. TCHC recognizes as part of its mission the priority of working to “build healthy communities.”

A Wellesley Institute backgrounder in December sets out Seven Things You Need To Know about the health, social and financial impacts of selling off TCHC homes. The backgrounder sets out the dollars and cents, and proposes practical options.

The Wellesley Institute’s Precarious Housing in Canada sets out recent research on the links between housing and health, and provides detailed research and policy analysis about housing at the federal and provincial levels.

Four former Toronto Mayors – David Crombie, John Sewell, Art Eggleton and Barbara Hall – have all written to oppose the sell-off of TCHC homes. Barbara Hall is Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission and, in her letter, warns that the sell-off of the properties could violate the Ontario Human Rights Code.

The proposal at Executive Committee exempts 18 TCHC homes that are managed by supportive housing agencies for people with special physical or mental health needs. The TCHC board had originally recommended that these homes be sold off, as well.

At the end of December, Toronto’s affordable housing wait list stood at an all-time record of 82,138 households. That’s a staggering 23 percent increase from the start of the 2008 recession, and a 7.3 percent increase in one-year alone from December of 2010. The affordable housing wait list includes low-income households that want to get into TCHC housing and other affordable housing providers. The list has been setting new records every month since 2007 – a clear signal of the urgent need for new affordable housing.

In December, only 280 households were housed off the list. At that rate, it will be almost 24 years by the time a household that signed up in December of 2011 is offered a place to call home.

Reducing the TCHC stock by selling off 740 homes will make an already painfully long wait for an affordable home even longer. The sell-off proposal includes a commitment that all the households that lose their homes will be re-housed in other affordable housing.

TCHC staff estimate that the housing company faced a $650 million capital funding shortfall in 2010, and that number could rise by $100 million annually. The funding shortfall was created by the federal and provincial governments when they downloaded former Ontario Housing Corporation housing projects and other stock to the city without adequate maintenance reserves. TCHC has received some capital repair dollars from the Ontario government following its 2008 budget, and from the federal government following its 2009 budget, but the amounts received were far less than the funding shortfall created by those governments.

TCHC has invested in energy conservation projects in recent years, and reaped substantial savings; but staff say that the cash-flow from its revenues is constrained. Almost all of its tenants are low or very-low income households, and their rents are set using formulas created by the provincial government. TCHC receives subsidies from the federal, provincial and municipal governments, but all three levels of government have cut their affordable housing investments.

Four former mayors urge City Council, Ontario government to reject scheme to sell-off 706 affordable homes

Four former Toronto mayors are urging current Mayor Rob Ford and Ontario housing minister Kathleen Wynne to reject a proposal to sell-off 706 Toronto Community Housing Company affordable homes. Former mayor Barbara Hall, chair of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, warns in her letter that the sell-off could violate the Ontario Human Rights Code; and former mayors David Crombie, John Sewell and Art Eggleton call on the City of Toronto to “re-engage the federal and provincial governments in a financially sustainable solution” to TCHC’s capital funding shortfall.

The proposal to sell-off the affordable housing is to be considered by Toronto City Council within days. The Wellesley Institute has warned in a detailed backgrounder that the sell-off would be bad for the health of low-income renters in Toronto and bad for the population health of Toronto.

Toronto Community Housing is the largest affordable housing landlord in Canada, and the second largest in North America. It provides a home to 164,000 tenants – many of them among the poorest in Toronto – in 58,500 households. The TCHC portfolio includes 2,115 buildings ranging from high-rise to single-family homes. The TCHC stock includes 874 housing units scattered throughout Toronto – many of them in middle or upper-income neighbourhoods – as part of TCHC’s “stand-alone” portfolio.

TCHC proposes to sell 706 of those stand-alone homes. Under provincial rules, the housing company must have permission from both Toronto City Council and the Ontario government to sell 686 of those homes.

TCHC has an estimated capital repair shortfall of $650 million – and that could grow by $100 million annually if neglected, warn TCHC staff in a report that proposes the sell-off. However, even if all the homes are sold at well over their assessed value, the net proceeds would only cover about half the capital shortfall. Former mayors Crombie, Sewell and Eggleton warn that the proposed sale “does not provide the long term financial solution needed to address the repair crisis facing Toronto Community Housing” and they urge the City of Toronto to negotiate seriously with the federal and provincial governments for adequate funding. Both levels of government have provided some capital funding for TCHC housing in 2008 and 2009, but the total amount was far short of the growing capital shortfall.

The TCHC repair shortfall was created when the federal and provincial governments unilaterally downloaded affordable housing stock to Toronto and other municipal governments across Ontario in the late 1990s. Neither level of government provided adequate capital reserves for the buildings, including the former Ontario Housing Corporation high-rise projects, downloaded to TCHC.

Meanwhile, Chief Commissioner Hall notes in her letter that the Ontario Human Rights Commission has identified a number of human rights and housing issues in a series of consultations and reports starting in 2007. The OHRC has warned that segregating affordable housing in a few neighbourhoods risks “ghettoization” of low and moderate-income households, contrary to the human rights code. The TCHC stand-alone portfolio proposed for sale includes some of the only affordable housing in upper-income neighbourhoods.

All four former mayors also warn against selling off affordable homes at a time when Toronto’s affordable housing list sets new records month after month. Toronto Housing Connections, the city’s affordable housing wait list, included 82,138 households at the end of December. Every month in recent years, the wait list has set a new record.

Selling off TCHC housing would leave fewer affordable homes as the city faces unprecedented demand for new homes. The vacancy rate in Toronto’s private rental housing is falling, and rents are rising – leaving private sector housing increasing out of reach for low and moderate-income households.

Toronto’s proposed 2012 municipal budget, which will be considered by city council this week, could add to TCHC financial troubles by imposing a $6 million cut to the city’s subsidy to the affordable housing provider. A Wellesley Institute backgrounder sets out other housing and homelessness cuts that are part of the draft 2012 municipal budget.

The proposals in Toronto’s draft budget to shut down three transitional shelters for 97 elderly and health-compromised homeless women and men will “save” city taxpayers less than $2 million, but will be costly to the health and lives of individuals who will lose access to a valuable service – and will also be costly to the rest of Torontonians. The shelter shutdowns are among a number of affordable housing and homelessness cuts to be considered by Toronto City Council when it meets for final consideration of the budget next week. City council will also separately review a request from Toronto Community Housing Company to sell-off more than 700 affordable homes in a bid to generate more funds for the cash-strapped city housing agency.

The latest numbers from Toronto Housing Connections – which manages the city’s affordable housing wait list – show that a record 82,138 households have added their names to the list as of the end of December. That’s a 7 percent increase from the previous December. Toronto’s wait list has been setting a new record every month for more than two years. With only 280 households housed during December, a household that signed onto the list that month could be waiting for 24 years to find a place to call home.

Budgets are about choices: choices about spending and revenues; choices about supporting vital programs and services; choices about the use of fiscal surpluses and tax revenues; choices about city-building and protecting vulnerable people. Toronto City Council’s decisions next week on proposed housing and homelessness cuts in the draft municipal budget will underline the choices that they have decided to make.

The proposed cuts up for review by council in the latest draft of the municipal budget for Shelter, Housing and Support (current at the time of writing this posting):

• Closing the 10-bed Bellwoods transitional shelter for elderly women with a history of mental illness and chronic homelessness. Shutting down this shelter will “save” city taxpayers $240,000. The shelter provides accommodation and support on a short-term basis for women seeking to make the transition from living on the streets to healthy housing.
• Closing the 27-bed Downsview Dells transitional shelter for elderly men who have been chronically homeless and who are in addiction treatment programs. Shutting down this shelter will “save” city taxpayers $652,000. Like Bellwoods, Downsview Dells provides short-term accommodation while the men are making the transition from homelessness to healthy housing.
• Closing the 60-bed Birchmount longer-term shelter for elderly men who have been chronically homeless. Shutting down this shelter will “save” city taxpayers $1 million. Birchmount is a vital pipeline for older men who want to move from Seaton House, the city’s largest shelter for men, to healthy housing.
• Cutting $6 million from the city subsidy to the already cash-strapped Toronto Community Housing Company. TCHC says that its large fiscal problems, including a big capital repair backlog caused by federal and provincial neglect, have forced it to propose selling off hundreds of homes. The loss of an additional $6 million from the city subsidy pushes TCHC even deeper into the financial hole.
• Cutting $1.5 million in subsidies to private landlords that will cut the number of low-income households that receive housing allowances from 1,340 to 1,087. Fewer rent subsidies means that fewer low-income households will be able to move into vacant private rental units.
• Cutting $265,000 in subsidies to non-profit landlords that will cut the number of low-income households that receive housing allowances from 205 to 146. Fewer rent subsidies means that fewer low-income households will be able to live in existing non-profit and co-op buildings.
• Cutting the number of homeless shelter beds from 1,713 nightly to 1,643 nightly; with the number of annual bed-nights to be cut by 0.8 percent to 1.406 million. Fewer shelter beds means fewer options for rough-sleepers (homeless people living outside) and also for the hidden homeless (people living temporarily with family or friends).

Toronto City Council’s long-term affordable housing plan – Housing Opportunities Toronto – calls for 70,000 new housing allowances / rent supplements over the next decade, but the draft 2012 operating budget moves the city backward by proposing to eliminate 312 housing allowances.

Overall, Toronto’s Shelter, Support and Housing Administration faces a 15 percent cut to its operating budget – or a loss of $137 million. Almost $114 million of that comes from cuts from the federal and provincial governments, with the city considering adding $23 million of its own cuts.

In addition, city council will consider cuts of more than 10 percent to the Affordable Housing Office, which are tied to a plan to radically slow down development of new affordable homes and repairs for existing rundown low-income housing.

The budget proposals would:

• Rapidly wind down new affordable housing development, from an estimated 1,502 affordable homes developed in 2011 to 300 in 2014 – which is 15 percent of the official annual target set by Toronto City Council for new affordable and supportive homes.
• Slash the number of rundown affordable homes that are repaired or renovated from the 1,034 homes estimated in 2011 to 400 homes by 2014 – which is 7 percent of the official annual target set by Toronto City Council for repairs to non-profit and private low-income housing.

Toronto City Council’s long-term affordable housing plan (Housing Opportunities Toronto) calls for funding for 2,000 new supportive and affordable homes annually, and funding for repairs to 6,000 non-profit and private homes annually.

Toronto expects to receive $108 million in federal and provincial affordable housing funding shortly to pay for new homes and repairs to existing housing over the next two years, but the winding down of city affordable housing programs as proposed in the budget raises questions about whether the city will be able to effectively allocate those funds.

Taken together, the proposed cuts to housing and homelessness programs amount to a fraction of a percentage of the overall municipal budget, but they will have a devastating impact on the health and lives of the tens of thousands of Torontonians who directly experience homelessness, the hundreds of thousands who are precariously housed and the entire city.

Wellesley Institute’s 2012 budget overview here.

Proposed housing / homelessness cuts threaten health here.

Selling off TCHC homes bad for Toronto’s health here.

As 2011 draws to a close, and 2012 beckons, a healthy and affordable home remains out of reach for millions of Canadians. Housing is about people – their lives, households, communities and health – and the year-end numbers tell a compelling story about housing in Canada in 2011.

Housing costs outpace household incomes

While the recession of 2008/2009 has been officially over for some time, the economic shock waves continue to batter communities, especially on the housing front. The costs of housing – both the direct costs (ownership prices, private market rents) and related costs (especially energy) – continue to outpace both the overall rate of inflation, and also the incomes of low, moderate and even middle-income households.

The austerity agenda embraced by almost all orders of government, combined with continued restrictions in the charitable sector and the relatively slow growth of innovative financing in Canada compared to our partners in the US and the UK, have put severe pressure on affordable housing providers. New development continues to be sluggish – well below the growth in household formation and the pent-up need for affordable homes in almost every part of the country.

The Wellesley Institute’s Precarious Housing in Canada set out the facts and figures about housing and homelessness, including the strong links between housing and health. A good home is one of the most important requirements for a long and healthy life and is critical to advancing the health of the entire population. Precarious housing and homelessness not only threatens the health of people who directly experience housing insecurity, but those two – combined with poverty, income inequality and poor health – affect all of us.

Still no national housing plan for Canada

Canada is the only major country in the world without a national housing plan. In early 2009, the United Nations’ Human Rights Council – the highest human rights body in the UN system – did a thorough review of Canada’s housing and other international human rights obligations. In Canada’s formal response to the highly critical UN review, the federal government acknowledged the need for more action to address precarious housing and homelessness, and promised to work co-operatively with the provinces and territories to achieve better results.

The federal Parliament came the closest it has come in two decades to adopting a call for a national housing plan when Bill C-304 passed first and second reading, and was amended by committee and sent back to the Commons for final consideration. While a majority of MPs backed the draft legislation, third reading was stalled by the federal government and the bill died when Parliament was dissolved for the national election. Towards the end of the year, MP Marie-Claude Morin announced that she would re-introduce the bill to create a national housing plan for Canada.

On July 4, the federal, provincial and territorial governments announced that they had reached an agreement on the final three years of the cost-shared affordable housing initiative. While it may not seem momentous that the three orders of government announced they were going to keep a commitment they made two years earlier, but in an age of austerity and multiple cutbacks, the announcement was welcomed with some relief. The agreement gives the provinces and territories even more “flexibility” to direct housing dollars to a variety of needs. The almost total absence of any public accountability for federal, provincial and territorial housing investments under previous FPT housing deals going back to 2001 raises concerns that it will be hard to assess and evaluate any results.

Needed: An adult conversation about numbers

Canada does a poor job of tracking the diverse range of housing numbers that are required to intelligently assess housing need, shape appropriate policy solutions and provide accountability for results. We rely heavily on one composite indicator – Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s core housing need – which in turn relies on Statistics Canada’s mandatory long-form census (which has been cancelled by the federal government in favour of a voluntary survey). Core housing need is only measured every five years – which is an eternity in public policy timing. It only measures three factors – affordability, suitability and adequacy – and relies significantly on self-reported data.

In October, the Wellesley Institute published a discussion paper by housing expert Steve Pomeroy with the goal of stimulating an adult conversation about housing numbers and housing policies. The many dimensions of housing need require more explicit attention, and composite indicators can sometimes mask important detail.

And now, a year-end romp through some housing numbers:   

• $1.9 billion: That’s this year’s federal housing investments through Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, as reported by the spending estimates. CMHC housing investments are down a whopping 39% in one year (down from $3 billion last year). Among the programs facing the biggest cuts: 97% cut to the federal affordable housing initiative; 94% cut to federal housing repair and renovation programs. The feds say the massive cuts are due to the “scheduled termination” of the two-year federal housing investments in the 2009 “stimulus” budget. In its January economic action report, the federal government proudly proclaimed that its housing investments were leveraging an impressive 1.5 times jobs and economic impact – three months later those housing investments were sharply curtailed.

• 603,600: That’s the number of low and moderate-income households that are assisted under federal housing programs, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Even though housing need has been growing since the start of the recession in 2008, the number of federally-assisted households has dropped by 22,700 since 2007. Even worse, CMHC predicts that the number of assisted households will be cut by 62,800 by 2015 – a 10% drop. As the number of assisted households is falling from 2007 to 2015, CMHC reports that its comprehensive income (the amount of surplus after Canada’s national housing agency has collected its revenues and paid its bills) will double from $870 million to $1.6 billion.

• 16,000 to 23,000: That’s the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation estimate of the number of new rental homes required in 2011 to meet the growing housing needs of low, moderate and middle-income Canadian households. Canada’s conventional private rental universe barely grew during 2011 as demolitions and conversions threatened to outpace new construction. The federal government funded 1,054 new affordable homes in 2010 (the 2011 numbers will not be available until summer of 2012) – way down from the more than 12,000 homes funded annually when Canada had a national housing plan in the late 1970s and 1980s. Growing need for rental housing and stagnant or falling supply pushed Canada’s national rental housing from an unhealthy 2.9% in the fall of 2010 to a painfully low 2.5% in the fall of 2011. Average rents grew by 2.7%.

• 27% cut: That’s how much the federal government has cut on-reserve housing programs this year, according to the spending estimates. Federal spending was cut from $215 million last year to $156 million this year. News of the appalling housing conditions in Attawapiskat put on-reserve housing horror stories back on the front pages towards the end of the year, but missing from the coverage and political finger-pointing was the news of the sharp cut in federal on-reserve housing investments. Many First Nations and other Aboriginal peoples live off-reserve in remote, rural and Northern communities, plus urban areas. Canada has not had a national Aboriginal housing strategy since the national housing programs were cancelled in the 1990s. The 2009 federal stimulus housing investments included some Aboriginal housing dollars, along with the 2006 two-year housing investments, but both of those programs have been terminated by the federal government.

The Wellesley Institute’s Canadian housing and homelessness e-map has grown to include 273 links to housing and homelessness initiatives in every Canadian province and territory (and you can add your projects too!).

Download A Housing Year In Review 2011 PDF