Housing is everyone’s problem
Given everything, she said she feels she got fairly lucky. She had insurance and a place to go.
Even before the fire, she had already been keeping an eye out for a new apartment so she knew that the housing landscape was bleak. As a single mom with two kids, she couldn’t find anything that was affordable and could accommodate the family.
Muir said the promise of insurance money gave her a bit of a buffer and with the help of a real estate agent that she knew, she was able to find a place in Wasaga Beach, but she is paying double the rent for an apartment that is a quarter of the size.
“That’s a huge gap. I just happen to be lucky to have insurance and they’ll cover that buffer up to a certain limit. I have about a year to figure stuff out but that’s the only reason I have a place right now, otherwise if that wasn’t the case, I would probably still be at my mom’s,” said Muir.
“Because there’s nothing out there. There’s no affordable housing out there whatsoever. Even with two incomes, I still don’t know how they are affording the places that are listed. It’s crazy.”
The listings she was seeing at the time ranged from $1,900-$2,500 per month. Muir said she looked at a place that cost $1,600 per month for what she described as a box that wasn’t even very nice.
“At that point I thought, what am I in for? How is this going to work?” She said the area is in need of apartment buildings and other affordable housing options. “There’s nothing like that in our area, nothing,” said Muir.
She said single people are facing multiple other cost increases, from fuel to food.
Because she hadn’t had a payout from the insurance company, funds raised by the community allowed her to pay first and last month’s rent. Looking ahead one year, Muir said, realistically, she will need a roommate to help cover the rent.
“The community was absolutely fantastic,” said Muir. “I can’t even describe in words how much that meant. It’s a horrible feeling to be displaced like that.”
The loss of six apartments in Creemore, caused by the Dec. 1 fire on Mill Street, provided a clear and undeniable illustration of the area housing crisis. Although not new, the housing problem continues to worsen and can be linked to a labour shortage.
Last summer, following a plea from the South Georgian Bay Regional Housing Task Force, Clearview Township council voted to discuss establishing an Affordable Housing Committee during this new term of council. The initiative was to be brought back to the council table before the end of March 2023.
The two members behind it are no longer on council and the initiative has been overlooked in the transition but Clearview Township CAO John Ferguson says housing and all of the spin-offs associated with it, including labour, are being considered as part of the strategic planning process currently underway, in preparation for next steps.
“We’re just not ready yet,” said Ferguson. “But we know that not having affordable housing is affecting our community.”
He said servicing of water and sewer is another challenge, one that is stalling all types of development in both Creemore and Stayner.
When talking about housing, various levels of government try to pigeonhole the conversation by using different labels; there’s small-a affordable housing and capital-a affordable housing and attainable housing. What we are talking about here is all three.
In 1986, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and the provinces agreed to use the 30 per cent threshold to measure affordability for the purposes of defining need for social housing.
According to Statistics Canada 2021 data, 18.6 per cent of households in Clearview spent 30 per cent or more of income on housing, down from 23.6 per cent in 2016. The decrease is partially attributed to a rise in income from the government wage subsidy offered during the pandemic. In 2021, 3.2 per cent of Clearview residents were living in housing that is too small or doesn’t have enough bedrooms, and 7.7 per cent were in inadequate housing, needing major repairs.
In Clearview, single detached homes make up 90 per cent of the housing stock, row houses make up 3.6 per cent and semi detached houses make up 1.2 per cent. The percentage of apartments in a building that has fewer than five storeys is 4.2 per cent and there are no apartment buildings with five or more storeys.
Average monthly shelter costs in 2021 were reported at $1,520 for owners and $1,300 for renters.
Mayor Doug Measures says housing is a big challenge and there are limited opportunities available to lower-tier municipalities like Clearview Township.
“Everyone talks about it as if we can solve it but we need provincial and federal support,” he said.
Simcoe-Grey MPP Brian Saunderson says no one level of government can tackle the problem alone but the current approach is rather like lawn darts versus a cohesive strategy.
He said while the federal government has earmarked nearly $3 billion to its Housing First initiative, it is unlikely any of that money will flow down to municipalities of this size. The province has mandated that development charges be waived for purpose-built affordable housing, and reduced for purpose built rentals. And because infrastructure is generally more affordable with densification, the province has mandated municipalities to allow accessory suites. Meanwhile, Simcoe County has been dedicatingresources to affordable housing for the past decade (See story on page 5).
Having recently served as mayor of Collingwood, Saunderson has a unique perspective on the friction between various stakeholders in the struggle to build more attainable housing.
“Many councils see themselves as gatekeepers of growth and are determined to protect the character of their communities,” he said. “That instinct contributes to slowdowns.”
He said densification used to be a dirty word among municipal planners but the reality is we need to build up or build out.
An economic development consultation in Collingwood found that employers, including the hospital, the OPP and fire department, were unable to recruit staff due to the high cost of living.
In recent years the town of Collingwood has waived development charges twice – once for a new school and once for the $40 million affordable housing project built by the County of Simcoe.
“Councils need to recognize that this is an investment in the sustainability of our communities,” said Saunderson, acknowledging that a lack of affordable and/or attainable housing is threatening the viability and sustainability of communities.
Clearview’s director of planning and building Amy Cann says typically housing is managed at the upper tier municipality, which is the County of Simcoe.
“Having said that there are things that we can do at the lower tier to help facilitate, or even possibly encourage the development of housing in our municipality,” said Cann.
“That range and mix of housing as required by the Provincial Policy Statement is a critical piece in what lower tiers can do to help encourage a great housing market in our community,” said Cann, adding that employment is a huge piece of the puzzle.
Municipal planning is done in conformity with the Provincial Policy Statement and encourages a range and mix of housing to suit varying needs. It also must conform to the Official Plans adopted by both the County of Simcoe and the township.
“Building a complete, healthy community is really important to me as a professional planner, and to the team at Clearview, and across Simcoe, Grey and Bruce (counties),” said Cann. “We want to, whenever we can, create employment along with our housing.”
She said creating a new program under a Community Improvement Plan (CIP) is a good way to do that. As a tool, she said, it can provide creative incentives to developers, nudging them toward a project that the municipality would like to see come to fruition.
The CIP could be initiated either by a member of council or staff and would require council support. Cann said the process is legislated by the Municipal Act and would follow a specific public input process, so it does require political will, funding, staffingresources and public support.
Under the CIP the municipality could direct funds, tax relief, or donate surplus land in order to incentivize development of specific projects or certain types of development.
“The nice thing about a CIP is that it allows a council to create some structure around how they use grant money that they’ve set aside through the budget process,” said Cann.
Once created, any outcomes from a CIP are still reliant on an application from an independent developer or proponent.
A municipality can designate land for high density development in its Official Plan, to accommodate an apartment building for example.
Cann said the Official Plan created in 2001 needs updating and staff is in the process of planning for the next 25 years. The new Official Plan will review not only allowable density on various lands, but also density thresholds, and is subject to public consultation.
Acknowledging that residents who oppose high density developments in their neighbourhoods are most likely to be vocal during a public engagement process, Cann said planners are ethically obligated to speak for the public interest.
“We have to think about the people who can’t or won’t come to the microphone,” said Cann.
– by Trina Berlo, with files from Bonnie MacPherson
10-yr affordable housing plan exceeds targets
by Bonnie MacPherson
While the situation is still extremely challenging for anyone seeking affordable housing in the area, progress is being made according to Brad Spiewak, director of social housing for the County of Simcoe.
The county is coming to the end of a ten-year plan to develop more affordable housing and Spiewak reports that initial targets have been exceeded. When the plan was launched the goal was to create 2,685 affordable units. As of Dec. 31, 2,775 units had been added.
New affordable units are a combination of new dwellings and rent supplements and housing allowances to make existingdwellings more affordable.
In the past year, 20 new affordable units were created in Clearview including six secondary suites. Of those secondary suites, only one took advantage of a program which offers up to $30,000 per unit in exchange for guaranteeing below market rental rates for a specified period. Spiewak says more funding is available under the program and no one is being turned away. The province has mandated that municipalities reduce red tape to facilitate development of secondary suites as an effective means to increase the supply of affordable housing.
Another program offers rent supplements and housing allowances to bridge the gap between what a renter can afford to pay and the full market rent. Typically, these supplements are made available to renters looking for new accommodations as opposed to existing tenants who are having trouble making ends meet.
The county also offers down payment assistance to qualified home buyers. The Affordable Homeownership Program aims to assist low-to-moderate income renter households in Simcoe County to purchase an affordable home by providing 10 per cent down payment assistance in the form of a forgivable loan. Loans are forgiven over a period of several years, and should the home be sold within that period the loan must be repaid. With the rapid increase in home prices in recent years, those loan repaymentshave plowed a significant amount of money back into the program which is used to fund more loans. In the past year, three homeowners in Clearview have taken advantage of this program.
The 2023 Clearview Township draft budget included $250,000 to be added to a reserve fund which would have totalled $700,000 to partner with the county on future affordable housing projects, but that funding was removed by vote of council in an attempt to get the tax rate down.
It was through this sort of partnership that 99 affordable units were created in Wasaga Beach and 41 in Victoria Harbour. Spiewak says the county understands there is a significant need throughout the area, and wants to provide options to allow people to stay in their communities where their families and support systems are.
Spiewak acknowledges that demand still significantly exceeds supply, so there is more work to do. The county is constantly pressing other levels of government for more help. Staff will be updating data on housing needs in the area this spring to begin development of the next generation of the housing strategy. A new plan should be ready for presentation to county council by mid-2023.
Information on county housing programs is available at iah@simcoe. ca, or staff are available at 705- 725-7215 ext 1119 to help guide applicants through the process.
