Tragedies highlight housing crisis
In this region there is a serious lack of attainable rental housing options. This is nothing new, but the housing gap continues to widen, escalating the problem.
Two recent events have shone a light on the extreme housing crisis in our area.
A community has a serious problem when there are no options for people who lose their apartments, as proven by the December fire that displaced tenants in Creemore. It has been next to impossible for people to find replacement housing and impossible to find anything in Creemore and at a comparable price.
This week, tenants at Huronia Guest Home in Stayner are in the process of being relocated. We expect the residents will likely have to relocate to another community to access comparable housing that is affordable and with the necessary level of assistance.
When people don’t have stable housing, or are paying a disproportionate amount of their income towards housing, everything else in life becomes precarious.
The threat of losing housing, even if it is not ideal, makes people afraid to “rock the boat” leaving them vulnerable to substandard conditions and rent hikes. That goes for people with precarious employment as well. They are more likely to take abuse and turn a blind eye to their rights for fear that they will lose their job and not be able to pay their rent.
We are an affluent community but this is our problem, all of us.
We have allowed, and even welcomed gentrification. But the scales have tipped and we are in need of housing options for the people who work in this community, servers and shop clerks who don’t make a living wage (calculated at just under $21 in Simcoe County).
Add on the stress of not being able to afford groceries and pay utilities because a disproportionate amount of income is going to housing, and most definitely a person’s mental and physical health will begin to fail.
This is a heartbreaking reality that leaves us feeling absolutely helpless. How do people who are barely making ends meet help those who can’t make ends meet? How do we support people who can’t find housing?
The problem feels huge and solutions are long-term. We are at the mercy of government and developers to create housing, which they continually demonstrate is not a priority. There are many barriers – although admittedly fewer than before – to creating secondary suites and apartments in single family dwellings. How do we encourage the creation of units, and reduce rents, even just a little?
Small communities benefit from a mix of residents so it is obvious that a mix of housing is needed. We are losing young people, lower income workers, and seniors. Unless they are well established in housing with rents set a decade ago, they are unlikely to find options in this community or any of the surrounding ones. That is our loss.
