CityHousing Hamilton has ‘aggressive’ plan to get empty homes filled

Thestar.com
April 26, 2023

CityHousing is pursuing a “much more aggressive” vacancy target through a multimillion-dollar plan to repair hundreds of empty units amid an affordability crisis.

The municipal housing provider’s vacancy rate was nine per cent -- or 649 units -- as of the end of last month.

That’s 507 empty units more than the revised goal of having only 142 unused units, a vacancy rate of two per cent, staff told the board of directors Tuesday.

That “dire situation” is the starting point for a revamped strategy to tackle CityHousing’s vacancy backlog, new CEO Adam Sweedland said.

“I think that was a bit of a shock that we wanted to put in front of the board to demonstrate the severity of the situation.”

The “reset” involves a number of changes, but the “biggest thing” is not drawing on the vacancy budget to address “pressures in other areas,” Sweedland said.

“We will let that money sit for vacancies. This is our core business. That is what drives revenue. That is what gets people off the streets.”

Previous direction in 2016 to not run deficit budgets has “largely been achieved at the cost of other priorities,” stated a staff report before current board members.

Coun. Nrinder Nann, who is the new board president, said it was “refreshing to hear the honesty” in the report and praised the new strategy.

“I think it’s a long time coming and better now than never.”

The strategy comes amid an affordability crunch that corresponds with roughly 6,000 households on Hamilton’s centralized wait list for subsidized units.

Last week, councillors backed a $5.7-million plan to repair 476 vacant units within 18 months using various funding sources, including a $1-million city grant.

Overall, CityHousing has 7,122 units in its portfolio. That includes homes that have been approved for sale and earmarked for demolition or redevelopment but must be replaced.

On average, it costs about $5,000 to prepare a vacant apartment for re-rental but $15,000 for townhouses, semis or singles, Sweedland noted.

But it’s not unusual for some vacant homes to require more than $25,000 in repairs, with work ranging from a simple paint job to renovated kitchens.

CityHousing has budgeted $3.28 million for turnover in 2023, a plan rooted in a “baseline” of 40 units per month.

“This is what we will now be tackling on a regular basis to sustain the pace that we need to to avoid going into a backlog situation,” Sweedland said.