As mortgage agreements end, affordable housing at risk but Waterloo region says there's a plan

Waterloo region is at risk of losing hundreds of community housing units over the next 10 years, but regional Chair Karen Redman says they're working on a plan to ensure that doesn't happen.

There are more than 3,200 community housing units run by local co-ops and non-profits throughout Waterloo region that will have their mortgages paid within the next decade. Once the mortgage is paid, there is no legal obligation to keep those units affordable.

"The region is engaging with housing providers to take a proactive stance and hopefully a strategy that will retain as many community housing units as possible in order to stabilize that sector and protect affordable housing," Redman told CBC. 

"We know we need more [affordable housing], not just what is existing. But if the existing housing goes off the market as affordable, it will just exacerbate the short supply we already find ourselves with."

Last month, regional staff brought their Community Housing Succession Strategy report to councillors, explaining the issue and suggesting a way to address it.

That strategy includes offering incentives to building owners and offering subsidies for capital improvements to keep rent affordable. It could also include offering funding to tenants to pay for rent increases.

"So in some ways, it is a carrot that we can offer the co-ops and not-for-profits," Redman said. "And we're hoping that would give them the incentive to continue to keep this housing stock in affordable housing."

Ministry knows 'a lot at stake'

After that meeting, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing also reached out to the region and other municipalities that oversee community housing to ask for feedback to proposed changes to the province's Housing Services Act.

A spokesperson for the ministry said the province has been speaking with municipalities "over the last several months" to develop a new regulatory framework for community housing. 

"We are working together to make sure there is a plan in place for providers to transition into when their original obligations end," spokesperson Melissa Diakoumeas wrote in an email.

"We know there is a lot at stake in creating these new regulations and we want to get it right. We will continue to work closely with … our municipal partners, as this work progresses."

The ministry is also seeking public input until Feb. 18 through the Ontario Regulatory Registry website.

Regional staff have written a response to the ministry, which will go before regional councillors at this Wednesday's committee meeting for approval. The letter says the region supports changes provincially, but that the ministry must ensure there's flexibility for the local municipality to address issues in its own community.

Staff wrote in the draft response that the region is prepared to work with "housing providers in partnership and in recognition of the crucial role they play to ensure everyone in the region has a place to call home."

Redman says she's pleased the province is also addressing this issue now.

"There are people in our community that have a very tenuous foothold in housing that most of us take for granted,"she said.

"It's one of the reasons why I really applaud the minister for asking for this input before all of the mortgages are paid out, because after that, there really are — in the absence of anything else changing — there would be very little levers that we would have as government, whether it's municipal or provincial, to persuade these people to keep these housing units affordable."