Council backs Hamilton’s housing ‘road map’

‘Nerve centre’ secretariat is to oversee massive task of shoring up the city’s eroding affordable housing landscape

Thestar.com
April 20, 2023
Teviah Moro

Build, buy, repair, support: those are the four “pillars” of a new housing “road map” to shore up affordability in Hamilton.

The strategy -- meant to deliver immediate action and play the long game -- is to shepherded by a new housing secretariat.

Among its roles, that office is to synchronize efforts across city departments and co-ordinate initiatives with community partners to tackle the housing affordability crisis.

The massive task needs “someone whose job” it is to wake up every day and “worry about this,” said Jim Dunn, a McMaster University professor and Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative director who’s advising the city on the road map.

The “nerve centre” secretariat is to oversee a range of priorities, from tapping investors to raise funds for projects, with the help of the Hamilton Community Foundation, to securing public land for affordable housing, such as surplus school board properties.

Council endorsed the Housing Sustainability and Investment Road Map after a presentation from Dunn and senior staff Wednesday at city hall.

“I think it’s something that can really make a huge difference in our community, if we can get it right,” Mayor Andrea Horwath said.

The municipality has yet to fill the secretariat’s director role, having posted the position at least twice, city manager Janette Smith said, noting a recruiter has been hired to help land the right candidate.

“But in parallel, we said we’ve got to get moving on this,” Smith said, noting an interim director has been brought on board. A co-ordinator and community adviser round out the secretariat.

The city’s road map comes during an era of spiking property values and soaring rents that has eroded affordable options faster than the city has replaced them.

Over a decade, Hamilton lost nearly 16,000 apartments that rented for less than $750 a month, while the city added 550 affordable housing units over the same period.

For every new unit funded, 29 existing homes were lost, housing expert Steve Pomeroy, a McMaster professor and executive adviser to the collaborative, found in an analysis.

As housing costs rise, support from senior levels of government are drying up, after a wave of provincial funding for homelessness programs flowed to the city during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’d be very remiss if I didn’t say we also need the support of the federal and provincial governments,” Smith said.

The road map, meanwhile, emphasizes a “whole of Hamilton approach,” said Angie Burden, general manager of the healthy and safe communities department, which includes the housing portfolio.

The plan is “intended to be nimble, holistic and action-oriented” rather than “one-off” initiatives pitched for council approval, Burden noted.

The strategy is held up by four pillars:

The first includes the construction of affordable housing with a goal of 350 “moderately” affordable rentals a year to fill a gap between deeply affordable units and pricier private apartments.

Creating this “pipeline” of non-profit-operated units at 125 per cent of average market rent now will ensure a supply that will be below-market in coming years and lead to a greater share of the housing market, Dunn explained.

The second focuses on encouraging “social purpose capital investors” to provide “access to financing” and creating an “acquisition assistance fund.”
Buying existing buildings is less expensive than building anew and can avoid such hurdles as zoning challenges, Dunn noted.

“There’s a way of doing this quickly. The challenge has been financing this and allowing organizations to be nimble.”

The third emphasizes the preservation and retention of existing affordable units, through such measures as resolving landlord-tenant disputes and expanding affordable housing benefits to tenants.
“We don’t have to build them a new house,” but just keep their units affordable, Dunn said.

On Wednesday, city politicians also approved “up to $1 million” to create a new housing benefit of $500 a month for as many as 166 households a year.

The fourth centres on 200 permanent supportive housing units to help those with complex mental-health and addiction challenges stay off the streets.
Based on burgeoning demand, that $8.9-million program would rightsize a previous -- and outstanding -- $5-million request to the province to support roughly 100 tenants, Burden noted.

“We would argue that 100 units would serve us well, but 200 units would meet the current need.”

As part of the strategy, Hamilton will participate in a Transit-Oriented Affordable Housing Lab with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to explore financing models. That’s set to launch next month.