Affordable housing wait list nearly quadruple number of spaces in Pan Am village
253 units of below market and geared-to-income rentals set to open in spring
Thestar.com
Sept. 13, 2015
By Sarah-Joyce Battersby
Months ahead of move-in, the wait list for affordable housing in a former Pan Am athletes’ village building is almost four times the available units.
Wigwamen, a housing charity geared toward indigenous people, will open a 145-unit building this spring. More than 560 people have already applied for a spot.
“There’s a desperate need for more affordable housing, particularly in the aboriginal community, but also more generally,” said general director Angus Palmer.
In Toronto, more than 93,515 households are on the wait list for affordable housing as of June 2015. That represents 171,309 people, according to Housing Connections’ latest report.
Since 2005, Wigwamen has just one new building, with nine units.
“The opportunities don’t come around all the time, but we try to capitalize on the ones that we see,” Palmer said.
With funding and support from the province and the city, Wigwamen, along with the Fred Victor Centre, will create 253 below-market and rent-geared-to-income homes in the former athletes’ village, located near Front and Cherry Sts.
“There’s no better legacy now than one that is about affordable housing, because there’s just so much need,” said Fred Victor executive director Mark Aston.
The agency has an ongoing wait-list that can “be into years” before access to two-bedroom or bigger units open up. Though the applications for the 108-unit Pan Am building won’t open until next month, Aston said, there have been inquiries.
“Any time you have high quality affordable housing that is being built ... with good access to downtown and the job opportunities there, there is obviously going to be very substantial interest in those buildings,” he said.
The new buildings, at 75 Cooperage St. and 20 Palace St., include a range of apartment sizes from one up to four bedrooms. Aston calls the inclusion of larger family units “hugely important.”
Ontario families have to wait three and a half years for affordable housing, according to the Ontario Non-profit Housing Association’s annual wait list survey released in the spring.
More than 6,000 Toronto households are waiting for four- and five-bedroom units.
Hot rental and housing markets combined with a lack of services and not enough affordable spaces have created a dire need, said Councillor Ana Bailao, chair of the city’s affordable housing committee.
“It’s becoming increasingly unaffordable to live in our city,” she said.
Bailao cited a need for more housing allowances, in addition to the 3,800 already administered by the city, as part of the solution to the diverse problems.
“You can’t target a 90,000 waiting list from one day to the other, so you’re going to have different solutions.”
Though 253 units is a small chunk of that gigantic list, Aston hopes the development, with its streamlined design in the neighbourhood, demonstrates the “importance and value” of affordable housing to a community.
“Even in a small way you’re addressing some of this huge need,” Aston said. “It is not going to have, or be associated with, the sort of stigma that public housing has sometimes had to deal with.”
The new apartment buildings also include fully accessible units, and space reserved for tenants with mental health issues, youth, seniors and government-supported amateur athletes. Some tenants will receive additional support through rent supplements and housing allowances.
Work is underway to convert the buildings from athlete dorms, which lacked kitchens and other amenities, into condos, a George Brown student residence, and apartments.
The area also boasts shops, patios, and cafes alongside a new 82,000-square-foot YMCA and 18-acre park.
“It’s the way we should be developing neighbourhoods with mixed income and mixed uses,” Bailao said. “We just need to do it much more often.”