Thornhill co-op tenants fear homelessness due to rising rents

Yorkregion.com
March 31, 2016
By Simone Jospeh

A clawback in subsidized rent has divided residents and left them fearing homelessness, according to a group of residents at Thornhill’s William Lyon Mackenzie Cooperative Housing.

“It has pitted neighbor against neighbor,” said Honey Jaeger, who founded Co-ops for All, a group of tenants working to get subsidies re-instated.

William Lyon Mackenzie is on Mullen Drive, north of Steeles Avenue near Bathurst Street. It has approximately 28 subsidized spots with 152 units in total.

After decades of receiving funding to help pay its mortgage, the co-op’s operating agreement ends in 2019.

In anticipation of this, the co-op started phasing out subsidized rent last year, with a 20 per cent annual increase in rent until 2019 for people who are subsidized.

Jaeger, who has lived at William Lyon Mackenzie for 31 years, says she is worried about her neighbours.

“We all have some members in arrears who have been financially evicted,” she said.

She also worries about the changing culture at the co-op. While neighbours used to be friendly and welcoming to one another, the gap between those who pay full rent and those who receive a subsidy has widened, according to her.

At the co-op’s last general membership meeting held in February, she arrived at the meeting and found signs bearing slogans such as: “We don’t want to pay your rent co-op members” and “Co-op is not a food bank … is not a government shelter”.

So, she put a motion on the floor to have the signs removed before the meeting started. When one of the signs fell down, she placed it on the floor and stood on it. She says another resident responded by pushing her into a cupboard door and displayed the sign in another place.

Jaeger is also concerned about very vulnerable residents, such as 91-year-old Dorothy Star, who is on a fixed income.

For Star, the 20-per-cent rent increase last June meant a hike from $725 to $862 per month. The next scheduled increase for residents on subsidy is three months away, set for this June.

“I can’t pay (a 20 per cent increase) and that’s all there is to it,” Star said, adding the increase has already meant that most fruit, vegetables, dental treatment and even a new pair of glasses are luxuries she cannot afford.

Sofia Fridman, 78, predicts after the next rent increase, she will share Star’s grocery woes. She finds after she has paid rent, there is little left over for necessities.

HEAT TURNED OFF

Last winter, she and her husband wore extra layers of clothing so they could keep their heat turned off.

Fridman says she cannot afford dentures, so she eats softer food since she cannot chew properly.

She has thyroid and blood cancer and has been on a waiting list for subsidized housing for 15 years.

In the federal budget, released last week, the Liberal government promised to set aside $30 million over two years, starting in 2016–2017, to help maintain rent-geared-to-income for families living in social housing. This support would be provided for a limited time, until a long-term approach for the social housing sector is developed.

The temporary solution is a “placeholder”, says Harvey Cooper, managing director of the Ontario Region of Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada.

“They recognize the problem and want to staunch the bleeding. How long-term this is remains to be seen,” he said. “It’s an improvement over what the government has done over the last few years, but it is not a long-term solution yet.”

It won’t be known how the budget announcement will affect local co-ops until the budget is more closely analyzed, he said. Cooper wants to examine the total dollars allocated versus the number of agreements ending.

Management at the co-op would not respond to several attempts for comment on the situation.

But Kimberly McKinnon, who works with the Community Legal Clinic of York Region and helps organize Co-ops for All, wants to know if the government will provide funding for the full amount of rent subsidy and when it may do so.

While the budget leaves her hopeful, she looks forward to meeting with three MPs over the next month to figure out what the budget means for local co-ops. She wants to communicate to the MPs the urgency of the situation.

“They need to roll it out ASAP, because people will lose housing if they don’t,” said McKinnon.

“It’s been troubling to see some co-ops moving away from the ideal and charging a huge increase,” said Thornill MP Peter Kent last week.

‘CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC’

After the budget release, he is “cautiously optimistic”, he said, since the government has pledged to invest in affordable housing.

But Kent points out that it is really up to the boards how they wish to spend the funding.

“The co-op boards will decide what to do with the money. We can only hope it will alleviate the pressure on low-income folks. We don’t know that yet.”

Elsewhere in York Region, Aurora Village Co-op’s operating agreement ends in 2017, before William Lyon Mackenzie’s. A co-op employee there said the co-op plans to maintain subsidized rent and does not want to cut back on subsidies.