Affordable housing creates a ripple effect of benefits — cutting costs in health care, public safety and other sectors. Despite this proven fact, the federal government has failed to develop a national housing strategy since it was nixed in the mid-1990s.
In the latest effort to get the Conservatives to adopt a strategy, Richmond city councillor Linda Barnes will recommend the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) campaign at Tuesday night’s planning committee meeting.
The campaign, Fixing Canada’s Housing Crunch, launched last week and calls on the federal government and all political parties to work with provincial, territorial and municipal leaders, as well as the private sector, to develop a credible long-term housing plan.
“The Conservative government is all about fiscal responsibility,” said Barnes. “It’s been proven that affordable housing reduces the costs in other areas.”
However, today’s Conservatives have been increasingly criticized for putting their ideology ahead of facts and empirical evidence when it comes to policy-making.
It has many people questioning whether they will listen to calls for such a strategy — especially since the original strategy was cut under a Liberal, and arguably more socially conscious, government.
“You know, I’m ever hopeful that they will listen,” said Barnes. “I think it’s more likely with a campaign such as this. They’ll see it’s a broad-based, concerted effort from the ground up.”
This is the first time the federal municipalities have come together in one campaign, according to Barnes.
The City of Richmond claims to have affordable housing as one of its highest priorities, but without the financial support of senior governments, the money put toward its initiatives aren’t enough, said Barnes.
Developers must contribute to either an affordable housing fund or their developments need to incorporate affordable housing units. The fund, which almost has $9.5 million, is used to build units that are mixed with other developments, said Barnes, so they aren’t segregated.
The recent rezoning proposal of the Sportstown facility in Richmond has the developer promising to provide $1 million for the city’s leisure facilities reserve fund, while only $279,000 goes into the affordable housing fund.
“We encourage developers to put in as much as possible, but we look at each application individually,” said Barnes. “With that particular one, it has always been providing facilities for a number of leisure activities. I’m assuming staff felt since it was already providing this, it should continue to do so in the future.”
Although Barnes agrees the city has a responsibility to help provide affordable housing, it can’t go it alone.
“Housing is an issue that has traditionally been a federal mandate and they’ve abdicated that responsibility,” said Barnes. “So anything we can do to remind them of that is worth it.”
Canada is the only G8 country without a national housing plan. Estimates for the country’s homeless population range from 150,000-300,000.
On top of that, one in four Canadians is paying more than they can afford for housing causing the mortgage debt held by Canadians to stand at just over $1.1 trillion, according to the campaign. This also puts the national economy at risk.
As Canadians are being priced out of the housing market, rental buildings only account for about 10 per cent of new construction.
“Compounding these problems is the coming expiry of $1.7 billion annually in federal affordable housing dollars with the greatest drop in funding, $500 million a year, ending between 2014 and 2019,” wrote the campaign’s press release.
