Solving housing dilemma key for employers


Yorkregion.com
March 5, 2015
By Laura Finney

A lack of affordable housing could be one of the reasons companies leave York Region.

“As we speak, AMEX is packing up,” said Richard Cunningham, president and CEO of the Markham Board of Trade and also a headline presenter at the Make Rental Happen For Jobs Breakfast Discussion, Feb. 27 at the Markham Convergence Centre.

“They are leaving because their employees do not want to commute out to this area,” he said. “It’s a problem for them.”

And it is not just AMEX. He mentioned another business, with a staff of 60, that left York Region.

“Young people working for them, high-tech software developers, they didn’t want to commute,” he said.

Former Newmarket councillor, now director at Allied Global, Chris Emmanuel agrees.

Employees are the company’s greatest resource, and the company works hard to keep them, he told those in attendance.

While it would be easy to relocate their business, Newmarket offers talented employees, he said.

“But at the end of the day, if we don’t have employees in York Region, it’s difficult for us to stay here,” he said. “If rental accommodations are not here, then people won’t come.”

And affordable housing impacts more than just jobs.

Cunningham showed a diagram illustrating where employees for companies in York Region live, and how far they travelled for work.

Some people came from north of Barrie, west of Mississauga and east of Oshawa.

And most of those people arrive alone in cars, adding traffic congestion.

But affordable housing is only one piece to the puzzle. Younger employees also like urban lifestyles, said Cunningham, admitting it was a complex issue, but one that had to be dealt with.

“If we don’t create housing that is affordable to first-time home buyers, we are going to continue to see traffic congestion, we are going to continue to see taxes flow out,” he explained.

He said if things do not change, the opportunities for young people to get jobs locally will decrease and all of this has an impact on the taxpayers, ratepayers and the homeowners.

The breakfast meeting was part of a series that brought together corporate leaders, business owners, human services agencies, members of the building industry and local governments to discuss how more housing options will help build stronger businesses and help York Region’s economy grow.

Stephen Ziegler, a student at Ryerson University, was one of the guests.

He was part of a group of students that helped conduct a study for the region, and examined ways to entice rental units.

He is going to be graduating soon, making him part of the main demographic talked about during the breakfast, and he agreed with a lot of what was said.

“A commute is definitely a factor for me,” he said. He lives in Toronto and does not have a car. “To come to York Region with no car, for something as important as a job, it’s difficult.”

Newmarket Councillor John Taylor and co-chair of the human services board said things are already starting to change.

“We’re going to be successful in this effort,” he said, pointing to the Rose Corporation, which is building a 225-rental unit complex in Newmarket.

“There is great benefit to building a prosperous and complete York Region by tackling this issue seriously,” Taylor said.

But he said it’s going to take work from a lot of organizations and all three levels of government.

“For that to occur, we need to have a broader understanding by public and government that rental housing is about more than housing for low and moderate income,” he said.

During the breakfast, people were encouraged to take a pledge stating how they would help make rental happen.

And while taking the pledge is great, Taylor said people have to act on it. They need to bring discussed ideas back to boardrooms, municipalities, developers and other elected officials.

“I’m having these conversations,” he said.