No one is expecting a small rural municipality like Clearview Township to solve the housing crisis, but seeing as it is has planning authority, it would be nice to believe it can be part of a solution.
While social housing may not be the responsibility of the lower tier municipality, suitable housing is. And we are tired of hearing that nothing can be done when there is an immediate need and all solutions feel a long way off, or completely out of reach.
Housing woes have been on our radar since we began hearing from seniors who feel they have no opportunities for downsizing when they are ready to leave their traditional single family homes, and are forced to move out of the community to find suitable housing – scaled, accessible and affordable. The seniors’ affordable housing reserve was established with a goal of being well positioned to partner with the County of Simcoe or developers when an opportunity came along. The initial goal was to get to $1.5 million by 2023 but with allocations scaled back considerably, the reserve now sits at $400,000, plus an additional $100,000 to be added in 2024 if the proposed budget is approved.
We can’t help but wonder what may have been if things had worked out differently.
What if during a recent Call for Proposals from the Simcoe County Housing Corporation for donations of land, buildings, and other incentives for the purpose of affordable rental, supportive, and mixed income housing developments, the township had been in a position to act.
Maybe there is an opportunity to work with a developer to convert an existing building into housing. Or a solution could be to use the reserve funds to establish a land package that could come online once services become available.
What if the municipality set a target for rental units in the form of secondary suites and used the reserve to subsidize building permit applications?
We should be asking ourselves, how can the municipality incentivize and encourage the creation of housing in a community where many people are over housed?
No one is expecting the municipality to become the landlord, but we do expect open and innovative thinking to house a wide variety of people including lifelong Clearview taxpayers, the people who work in the small businesses in the municipality, newcomers – everyone.
Or is the unspeakable true? Are we putting up road blocks to make sure the people who need housing have to find it elsewhere? Well, that is a false narrative because there is no elsewhere. The housing crisis is affecting all communities. We would be wise to remember that many of us are in a precarious financial state, despite appearances – one divorce, illness, or financial setback from being unhoused.
And we’re not buying the argument that a municipal tax shouldn’t be used to weave the social fabric of the community, if that were true we wouldn’t fund the youth centre, libraries, arenas, parks or anything else that serves a few at a low cost to many. That is social capitalism and our entire society is built on it.