Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2023

The Current Transcript for September 27, 2023

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

At what cost? The Housing Crisis and Your Community – Pt. 1

Guests: Rosanna Araujo, Isabelle West, Kristen Vittraino

SOUNDCLIP

With the cost of having twins in day-care, a six year old and a before and after school program, the cost of living in general, we're at our thresholds. We cannot afford to go anywhere. We can't afford to rent in Toronto.

MATT GALLOWAY: This is what Canada's housing crisis looks like. Rosanna and her husband both have solid middle class jobs, but when they look for a place to live in Toronto, all they can afford for their family of six is a two bedroom apartment and it is a tight squeeze.

SOUNDCLIP

Especially the two toddlers. Two toddlers is like ten people each. They just take up so much space.

MG: All across this country, people are dealing with rising rents and soaring mortgage payments. Today we are in a neighbourhood of Toronto known as Weston. It's in kind of the northwest corner of this city. There's a busy main strip weekend farmers' market, beautiful trails down by the Humber River, a mix of single family homes and tall apartment towers. And for a long time this was one of the few affordable pockets in a very expensive city. But that is changing.

SOUNDCLIP

You have to make $50,000 or more to be a permanent housing person. Without that, people like me on the margins who I mean, I've worked since I was 14 years old. Affordability is just a fancy term. It doesn't really mean anything.

MG: We are here with a fantastic live studio audience at Artscape Weston Common. And over the next 90 minutes, we're going to be talking about the housing crisis. This is playing out right across this country. But you can see all the dynamics right here in this community. My name's Matt Galloway. This is a special edition of The Current: At what cost? The Housing Crisis and Your Community.

[Applause]

MG: One of the people that we just heard, Rosanna Araujo is with us on stage. Hi.

ROSANNA ARAUJO: Hi.

MG: So we came and knocked on your door at 7:30 in the morning. You were trying to get the family ready and out the door. It was busy.

ROSANNA ARAUJO: That's normal.

MG: Can you just paint as a picture of your living situation? What is it like?

ROSANNA ARAUJO: So I have four children in total, ranging in ages from toddler twins to a teenager, plus my husband and myself. We live in a two bedroom unit just south of Lawrence, off of Weston.

MG: How do you fit everybody into that space?

ROSANNA ARAUJO: Man Are we cramped? For sure.

MG: When we were there, kids are great, but the kids and their stuff, it was kind of all over the place, right?

ROSANNA ARAUJO: Oh, yeah. We tried to tidy up as best as we can because you were there, but it's typically definitely not that tidy. There's stuff everywhere. But honestly, we just don't have anywhere to put things. So stuff has to be everywhere.

MG: And so things like that. You were talking about your table where you would eat dinner. That's out the door now.

ROSANNA ARAUJO: Yeah. So we don't have a dinner table anymore because we don't have the space for it. I'm, I work from home Desk is also my couch. And you sat in that spot, remember?

MG: Yes. And you eat dinner? Where are you? Were talking about where you eat breakfast and lunch.

ROSANNA ARAUJO: Oh, standing over the counter.

MG: If you wanted to move somewhere larger because your family's big and busy and there's lots going on, what options are out there right now for you?

ROSANNA ARAUJO: I don't have an option. And I can't leave where I live because my rent right now is affordable for what we're able to afford. And simply leaving is it's just not an option.

MG: Can I ask you about money, if you wouldn't mind? I mean, how much are you paying?

ROSANNA ARAUJO: Yeah. So I pay 24, 38 a month.

MG: And if you were to get something larger, what would you be paying?

ROSANNA ARAUJO: So when we flirt with the idea of looking, we're looking in and around 4000 a month.

MG: $4,000 a month. And that would just there's no way.

ROSANNA ARAUJO: There's absolutely no way now

MG: You and your husband both have pretty good jobs, right? Yeah. What do you do?

ROSANNA ARAUJO: So my husband's a transit operator for the TTC, and I work in social media communications for a non-profit.

MG: What is it? Say that people like yourselves find yourself in this pinch.

ROSANNA ARAUJO: It says it the middle class. Because that's what I see ourselves as being is like, fizzling out like that term no longer exist or either, you know, lower income or you're affluent. The middle class doesn't exist anymore. So that's kind of what it says to me.

MG: What do you love about this community?

ROSANNA ARAUJO: Oh, my gosh. So much like the trails that surround us, the people walking through the city, through the neighbourhood, the different kids. Like, I honestly, I just love it all.

MG: I said in the introduction that in some ways this was one of the last few affordable pockets in Toronto. But that's changing quickly, right?

ROSANNA ARAUJO: Oh, yeah. Very fast.

MG: How so? Like, describe how that change. How you see that change?

ROSANNA ARAUJO: Well, when we look for housing, because, you know, we do need a bigger space and we're looking in other parts of Toronto. There isn't anywhere else in Toronto that we're able to afford. That's within our, you know, level of affordability, so to speak. So that's how it's changed, because I can't move anywhere else in the city. I have to leave if I wanted something bigger.

MG: Your story is not an unfamiliar one in this community, but certainly across this country. We also have Isabelle West with us on stage. Isabelle, Hi.

ISABELLE WEST: Hi. How are you? I'm okay.

MG: How are you? I'm well, thanks. You're a homeowner here in Weston. Tell me a little bit about trying to find a place that you could afford.

ISABELLE WEST: So we moved in four years ago. Originally, it was just my husband and I. We bought a house. This a small semi-detached in 2019. We were lucky to be able to get in when we did. Subsequently, during the pandemic, we had a baby who's now 17 months.

MG: Congratulations.

ISABELLE WEST: Thank you. We we know that we are fortunate in that we are homeowners in this city. But even we make choices and sacrifices because of the cost of living.

MG: Tell me about the hardest choice that you've had to make so that you could afford your house.

ISABELLE WEST: You had to go there right away, didn't you? So my husband and I have talked about this a lot for a number of reasons, partly because of my age, but also because of the high cost of living. We have made the tough decision to only have one kid, and that for me, is a little bit heart wrenching because I would love to have another. But we didn't get our kid into a licensed Day-care, so we're paying more for that. You know, if we were to have a second kid, we don't know that we would get a license, but we were doing okay now. But we're definitely feeling the cost of food. We have a kid who's so fussy, so feeding him is really challenging the, you know, the expensive day-care we're feeling as well. So while we discuss it often, I think just emotionally, it's a hard one for me. Yeah, if we're only going to have one kid.

MG: It must have been a tough series of conversations to have.

ISABELLE WEST: Yeah.

MG: There's a lot of things going on. People make choices for all sorts of reasons, but one of the big parts, as you said, is because of the cost.

ISABELLE WEST: Yeah.

MG: How do you wrap your head around that?

ISABELLE WEST: It's, you know, a hard pill to swallow sometimes because I would love to give my kid a sibling. I have siblings and my my husband has siblings. And but from my perspective, I just try to tell myself we're lucky to have one beautiful child and we focus on that. And that's what we were trying to do. And I also think we feel like, you know, we're doing okay now. Should we have a second kid and potentially not be able to afford a second day-care potentially not be able to afford a second kid? I don't we don't want to be in that situation. So we've made the choice to just have one.

MG: And part of that is thinking about what's happening right now, but also what's going to happen in the future. You have a mortgage. Yes. And your mortgage is up for renewal when?

ISABELLE WEST: Next summer.

MG: And so the rates are a whole lot different than when you perhaps bought your house.

ISABELLE WEST: Correct.

MG: What are you thinking about when it comes to that renewal?

ISABELLE WEST: We discuss it all the time. We are going to try a couple of different things. I don't actually know if this is possible, but in the hopes that the high interest rates might not be here forever. I was thinking, when we renew, let's get a shorter term. We don't need to get three years. They want you to get five. Why don't we try for, you know, 12 months and then if we're only paying more, maybe it's only for a year. Hopefully we may also have to lengthen our amortisation like we're going to have to kind of figure it out.

MG: Conversations about money are really hard to have, especially with strangers in front of an audience full of people across the radio. But I mean, people talk about waking up in the middle of the night and worrying about things. Do you worry about that line, about that limit, about how far you could be pushed?

ISABELLE WEST: I do. So, you know, I'm in the private sector and they're predicting a recession. So something I'm very aware of is the first jobs that are often cut in a recession are the ones in the private sector. So, it's something I think about with a young child and a mortgage and day-care costs. You know, I just I hope and pray that we're going to, you know, continue to be able to make ends meet. But it's something that definitely preoccupies me.

MG: What about for you in terms of the stress of everything that you're facing and the choices that you have to make? When we were there at your house, you presented a pretty calm picture, but you were you were moving at a million miles an hour too.

ROSANNA ARAUJO: I describe it to my husband as mental overload and overstimulation. So it's something that I recently discovered that I'm definitely overstimulated because there's so much noise in my house because I don't have a space where I can go and, you know, hide for my kids. Sometimes I just want to hide from them because there's a lot of them. I'm outnumbered.

MG: I think there's a lot of parents that would probably understand that sentiment. What does that word affordability mean to you?

ROSANNA ARAUJO: It's definitely a complex word. It's changed in its definition for me over time. If I look at it now, it's what I need to to live barebones.

MG: Just what you need to live.

ROSANNA ARAUJO: Just what I need to live.

MG: One of the reasons that we're having this conversation is there's an immediate crisis. But you often hear from parents who say, I have no idea where my kids would not just in major cities, in smaller cities and smaller towns, because the cost of living, cost of housing is going up, up, up. Do you think about that?

ROSANNA ARAUJO: I definitely do, because I have a teenager and he's while he's in grade ten, I know that post-secondary is just around the corner. And I often think I'm like, where is he going to go? Like, is he going to go away from home? Which I mean, for his sake, I hope he does. That way he can study and some where quiet. But, you know, when-

MG: You're saying that vaguely, selfishly too.

ROSANNA ARAUJO: Selfishly too, it's like I would, you know, But I think about it all the time because I'm like, well, where will he go when he's done university or college? Is he going to want to call Toronto home? Can he call Toronto home? Like there's a big difference.

MG: A little bit for you, Isabelle. Do you worry about that?

ISABELLE WEST: All the time. I mean, for us, the only thing I think of is we have one kid. So if the, you know, someone were to inherit our house, there's a certain logic that it would be him that gives me a little bit of peace of mind, but there are no guarantees of that. And so I think about it all the time.

MG: What would help you? We're going to be talking about solutions. Part of this is about hearing the pinch that people are in, but also trying to figure out what would ease that pressure. What would help you, do you think, Isabelle?

ISABELLE WEST: Definitely a lower cost of food would be helpful if we could get a licensed day-care spot, that would be helpful. And I was really pleased when the federal government program came out for the day-care. I think that was a great initiative because having kids, as you would know, is very expensive.

MG: And you see all of that connected. I mean, we're talking ostensibly about housing, but all of those. Other pieces kind of factor in, right? If you're talking about food, if you're talking about childcare.

ISABELLE WEST: Absolutely. The cost of living is increased everywhere, not only in rent prices. Interest rates for those renewing their mortgages, food, day-care, diapers.

MG: Rosanna.

ROSANNA ARAUJO: I would love it if my grocery bill came down. You know, I went to Walmart to get a couple of school snacks and I was like, I have like two bags of stuff and it was like almost 200 bucks and like, but I don't even know what I bought. Like, I couldn't even tell you, like, how I spent that much money. But I can because I had, like, ten things.

MG: Do you think of a future in this neighbourhood? Do you think that this is the community that you'll be able to afford to stay in.

ROSANNA ARAUJO: If it stays exactly the way it is or gets better, then yes. If the trend, which I hope it doesn't change, if it moves in a direction where the cost just continues to go up and up and up,

MG: The cost of living.

ROSANNA ARAUJO: Yeah. Yeah. Then I'm going to be squeezed out.

MG: I'm really glad to have you both here. Thank you very much.

ROSANNA ARAUJO: Thank you.

MG: Thank you. We have a room full of people here as well. And so if this kind of rings true to you and you are feeling that pinch of high housing costs, we'd love to hear from you. First, though, we wanted to go to Kristen Vettraino, who is a mortgage broker here in Toronto. Hi.

KRISTEN VITTRAINO: Hello.

MG: I read today that the average mortgage in the city of Toronto as of last year was something like $809,000.

KRISTEN VITTRAINO: Sounds about right.

MG: That's a lot of money. Who could possibly afford to buy a house in Toronto right now?

KRISTEN VITTRAINO: People who have inherited it.

MG: Well, it's as simple as that.

KRISTEN VITTRAINO: I mean, somebody's got to help you get a down payment. And often somebody has got to come on title with you.

MG: What are your clients doing to try to get into the market?

KRISTEN VITTRAINO: They're asking their parents. There are some people, if they can get in before they have kids and they have an opportunity to buy a small condo. I have clients who are two young professionals with impressive salaries, buy a nice condo. But I rarely see anybody who's saved up a down payment to be able to buy, you know, $1,000,000 home.

MG: How often do you hear about people who are in the place that they're in? And perhaps they need more space, Maybe they don't like where they live, maybe they don't like who they live with. Maybe they need to find somewhere else to go, but they can't because to go somewhere would be giving up the rent that they could afford and they simply can't afford something more.

KRISTEN VITTRAINO: Yeah, I mean, I see that usually when I'm talking to people, they have some sort of plan, some sort of idea that they can afford something. I spoke to somebody today who's cramped in her condo. She said she's going crazy. She wants to buy a townhouse, but she doesn't have enough equity in her condo to buy the townhouse. So I'm like, how close are you with your boyfriend right now? And they're considering it now. So that's I mean, you really got to hopefully have somebody in your close community who can help you do that most of the time.

MG: How worried are your clients about the possibility that they bought extended themselves to their limit at a low interest rate and suddenly they're going to have to renew it at an interest rate That's a whole lot higher.

KRISTEN VITTRAINO: The people who are very worried. The people that I've seen have also sort of racked up some commercial debt as well. So they've got a line of credit credit card because things are so expensive. They're trying to manage all of that debt. And so something we used to do all the time so easily, you just refinance that all into your mortgage and be like taking your 20% credit card debt and putting it into a 3% mortgage. But now it's not as appealing to do that. It's still an option, but it doesn't just clear things and give you that sort of like release that it used to.

MG: You know this because this is your business, but this is also your own life, right?

KRISTEN VITTRAINO: Yeah.

MG: Tell me about the situation that you find yourself in with your own mortgage.

KRISTEN VITTRAINO: So I took a variable because that was the prevailing wisdom at the time. I've been a mortgage broker for ten years and never have interest rates in my whole career gone above like the high threes. And so, yeah, my mortgage payments nearly doubled. And I actually consider myself lucky because at least I know that my interest in my principal is being paid. I have the type of mortgage where my payments have gone up. There are other types of variable mortgages where your interest rate goes up in the background and you're kind of like unless you keep really hawkish attention on your mortgage, you don't really know where your principal is until the bank sends you a notice.

MG: What is the advice that you're giving your clients? I mean, if they're facing you don't want to be dramatic about it, but but a fiscal kind of cliff in some ways where they've they've put everything that they can. They don't know that they can afford to pay anything more. They don't know what else they could do. What is the advice that you're giving them?

KRISTEN VITTRAINO: Just very basically, I would say you definitely have to consult a professional. There's no sense in coming up with this plan on your own when when there are services that you can access generally for free most of the time. You have to really look at your finances. I know. That if you're putting things on your credit card, like I certainly buy my groceries with my credit card and I try to pay it off. But like, if you're not looking at your accounts, it feels worse than actually just looking at your account. So you have to have a real budget. You have to have a real plan.

MG: What do you see as the impact of this? What's the impact of of of an affordability crisis where people simply cannot? And we're going to talk more about all the different layers that this is impacting. If it's the middle class in particular, which you're talking about now, what's the impact of that, do you think, more broadly on society and on a city like the one we're in right now?

KRISTEN VITTRAINO: Yeah, I mean, for years it's been like the theme of a realty office that I'm familiar with is Drive Til You Can Afford It, which is great if you have a car and it's great if you have access to a community. But if your community is here and you can't afford to be here, that's nonsense. That's like I'm an idealist. So I just think that's not a good world. I think there needs to be like a fundamental change in systems. And I think that a meeting like this is a really good outcome. You know, as you said earlier, this is a bit of a boiling point. This has always been a problem in Toronto and many people have been suffering. And now and maybe enough people are suffering that we're like, let's actually maybe do something about it.

MG: What does that mean, do you think, to a city? Are you seeing that like that drives until you can qualify? Where are people driving to? How far out of this city would people have to go to be able to qualify?

KRISTEN VITTRAINO: Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. It used to be Mississauga and then it was Hamilton. And now that's not even realistic, right? Like, my best friend just moved to Orillia, which everyone should be very sad for me. So is my best friend.

MG: Which is a couple of hours away from Toronto.

KRISTEN VITTRAINO: Which is, I think in a good drive. It's about an hour and a half. But she had community there and he works for a pharmaceutical company and he just got a letter that says you have to come back to work to two days now and maybe three days. So they were living in a nice house in Orillia, like they just moved last year and they had this perfect plan and now it's like, Oh, you're adding six commutes to your week.

MG: We have a question in our audience. Hi.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 1: Oh, hi. I was just going to share that I'm definitely worried about pushing a lot of people in our community. I live in Mount Dennis, which is just south of here, and we definitely have 11 new developments on the books, all of which are going to be over 40 stories, none of which will have rent control, none of which will have affordable housing, deeply affordable housing, assisted living. A lot of the people in our neighbourhood are definitely going to be forced out by by this these developments, which is incredibly frustrating because the transit has always been billed as a net plus for our community. Our community definitely needs the transit, we need the developments. But the question is who is going to actually benefit from that? And I fear that for many of my neighbours, it's not going to be for that.

MG: A lot of folks in the audience nodding is you're saying that one of the things that you'll often hear is that you need those buildings because we need more buildings, we need more places for people to live. But you say that there's a knock on effect from that in some ways. Do you worry about that, Rosanna? People need places to live, but do you worry about what that's going to mean for the changing nature of the community?

ROSANNA ARAUJO: Oh, all the time, yeah. I've got four kids, so I always wonder. I'm like, what is their neighbourhood going to look like in 5 to 10 years? Because it's not going to look like what it looks like right now.

MG: And when people would say, we need those tall buildings because that's where people are going to live.

ROSANNA ARAUJO: Which people? Because they're not people with kids.

MG: Isabelle, do you worry about that?

ISABELLE WEST: I do, because I think right now you might be able to buy a condo now, and that's if you're lucky. If this problem persists and continues to worsen, the cost of condos eventually will just reach maybe what we're paying now and house prices as well. And so there were a lot of people nodding as well. And so, yes, I think we're going to reach a point where you won't be able to buy a house or a condo or live in an apartment in the city as well. It's quite scary.

MG: We're going to hear more about solutions coming up. In the meantime, I want to thank all three of you for being on stage with us this evening. Thank you.

ROSANNA ARAUJO: Thank you.

MG: Rosanna Araujo, Isabelle West, and Kristen Vittraino. We're going to take a quick break for the CBC News. Then we're going to hear how this housing crunch is driving up demand for social services in this community. Again, this is a story that's playing out right across the country. My name is Matt Galloway. We're coming to you from the Western Neighbourhood in Toronto. This is a special edition of The Current. At what cost? The Housing Crisis and Your Community. Stay with us.

Back To Top »

At what cost? The Housing Crisis and Your Community – Pt. 2

Guests: Bryan Douthwright, Sharlene Henry, Mohammed Mohammed, Tony Irwin

MG: Hello, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to a special edition of The Current. At what cost: The Housing crisis and your community. We're in front of an audience at Artscape Weston Common in Toronto. You'll get applause in the studio.

[Applause]

MG: On stage with me now, the advocacy manager at the Western King Neighbourhood Centre, Bryan Douthwright. Thank you very much for being here.

BRYAN DOUTHWRIGHT: Thank you.

MG: Also with us on stage, Sharlene Henry, who lives in this neighbourhood and is co-chair of the Western Tenants Union. Hello to you.

SHARLENE HENRY: Hello. Thank you.

MG: We saw you at work, Bryan. We went for the breakfast and lunch program to see how you are helping people there.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Carrots, add some chicken and some seasoning. So like a chicken and stir fry. And that's for lunch.

MG: What do you notice about people? Has it increased the number of people?

VOICE: Oh, yeah. Big time. Big time.

VOICE 2: I've been coming here to this centre for a few years now, so I'm actually the more more or less on the street. I'm like in a tent in a patch of bush. And so I don't really have means to cope. I don't have means to refrigerate food.

VOICE 3: It's challenging. I like living here because it's close to my work, but at the same time the rent is putting a burden on me now. We're looking at a 7.41% increase, which is about $207.

MG: Would you be able to afford that?

VOICE 3: It'd be very challenging unless the wages were to go up at least $89 an hour. But that's going to be tough.

MG: We've been hearing about the high price of housing. We know that it's expensive. We know it's hard to find somewhere affordable to live. How is that impacting the clients that you work with?

BRYAN DOUTHWRIGHT: It's impacting them on a daily basis, like for the food meal program. Since I started there about a year and a half ago, numbers have skyrocketed. We were maybe 80 people a week for our grocery program. It's now up to 120. And the meal programs as well have almost doubled on some days. Some days we have up to 120 people through the building. And then that doesn't count for the amount of meals served, because a lot of people are taking meals home for their family members who can't come, folks who have disabilities, stuff like that.

MG: When we were there, it was a huge range of people. So it doesn't fit into one bucket. It's not just sort of under one umbrella in terms of the demographic.

BRYAN DOUTHWRIGHT: No, it's everybody in Western, basically. Well, anybody moderate to low income. So many of our folks are on social assistance, have disabilities, but there are lots of folks working as well.

MG: Are you shocked by that, that there are people who are working? They need that food. This is what they're eating that day. Are you surprised by that?

BRYAN DOUTHWRIGHT: Sadly, I'm not surprised. That's just how it's been for quite a number of years in Western and been the city at large.

MG: Sharlene, what have you seen when you knock on your doors of your neighbours and friends, people in your community? What do they tell you about what that word affordability means?

SHARLENE HENRY: You tell me that it's not affordable in Weston anymore, that they've come to this neighbourhood. They love this neighbourhood. It's their home. They're suffering. From a senior on a fixed income who can't afford groceries, who has to go to Western King Neighbourhood Centre on a daily basis to eat, to young families who their hours were cut during COVID, hours have not come back to them. They're just living paycheque to paycheque with the assistance of all the not for profits in our neighbourhood.

MG: How have you seen that change?

SHARLENE HENRY: Well, I've been here for 20 years and the change is incredible. The average person who lives in this neighbourhood is not able to afford this neighbourhood. They're struggling paycheque to paycheque. I'm a prime example of that. I am a person who's married. I have three children. We're both working full time. If he's on the layoff, I'm working. If I'm going to lay off, he's working. But we cannot save because we have to dip just to survive. It's from food to our rent or mortgage, and it's our are expenses with our kids because as we all know, kids grow. They don't stop. They eat a lot. They get older and it just keeps going. And it feels like you're like a hamster on the wheel. Keep going and trying to make ends meet. But it's hard to make ends meet. Or five people in a two bedroom apartment. And it's hard every day because you're trying to figure it out. I'm the queen of Thrifting and at the grocery store I price match when I can. It's harder now because everywhere is expensive and I walk through the grocery store upset, saying, because they can, they're charging us this. Kids snacks are very expensive right now. It's not fair. It's not right. Nut free, the price goes up. It's doubled. Whatever it was last year at this time in September, it's doubled now. And we have to buy it because we can't send our kids to school without a snack. So we're sacrificing in other places.

MG: Part of your job, Bryan, is to help your clients find somewhere to live. What are you and what are they up against in the market that we've heard about in this community?

BRYAN DOUTHWRIGHT: It's honestly impossible right now.

MG: It's impossible.

BRYAN DOUTHWRIGHT: In about a year and a half, I've helped house only a handful of people, and that's generally through the Rent Your Income program. And if they're, like fleeing domestic violence or very extreme cases. So if it's somebody who's facing like a rent eviction, we'll make a few calls to places that might not even afford obtain. So we're looking for places that they would be spending 100% of their income on and still can't find anywhere. And then at that point, the individual will have to either think about leaving the city to go like Barry to Sault Ste Marie, many places like that, or end up on the street.

MG: And we've met some of those people, man, who lives in a tent in the forest, who was coming as a client to the breakfast and lunch program because he's just been priced out. There's nowhere for him to be able to afford to live.

BRYAN DOUTHWRIGHT: Yeah, and sadly, I'm one of the I was the person who helped them find that space for his tent. That's what I that's what I'm doing basically is. Just trying to support people on the streets rather than actually get people housed because there's just no way to help.

MG: If you are able to find something that somebody perhaps could afford at that extreme level, spending a high percentage of the money that they would have on rent. What are the quality places like? Because part of it is about a roof over your head. But people deserve dignity, too.

BRYAN DOUTHWRIGHT: Yeah, it's a lot. It's not dignified living. Sometimes they'll be like above a garage. Places that generally we would say is unfit for human habitation. But that's just that's all there is.

MG: We have a guest in the audience who can speak to a little bit of what you were doing as well in terms of the increase on demand for social services in this community as the cost of living goes up. Mohammed Mohammed is the executive director of Jane's Alliance Neighbourhood Services. Hi. Thank you for being here.

MOHAMMED MOHAMMED: Thank you for having me.

MG: What are you seeing in terms of an increase in the work that you do in the food bank in particular as the cost of housing goes up?

MOHAMMED MOHAMMED: Well, if you do what I do on a daily basis, you won't be surprised to hear what. The audience is hearing tonight back in 2019. We were worried about people, especially seniors, who were isolated in their homes, and we sent community members to investigate what's going on. And the feedback we got was that they're isolated, they're afraid of coming out. They don't have food. They can go out and purchase food. So we sent our staff to help them. And out of that. We established a food bank for 20 people. That became 40, then [unintelligible] hundred. Today we serve more than 750. Individuals and families and what its capacity. And we see on a daily basis 15 to 20 people who want to be registered and we refer them to other agencies, but they're also at capacity now. Regarding the affordability of housing. I hear a lot of stories about people who are talking about mortgages. The clients I deal with, I'm not talking about that. They're looking for some place to live in. And you know what my solution is? Go find someone who's renting a bed. Let's hope so.

MG: Your solution is asking and telling people that they should find someone who's renting a bed.

MOHAMMED MOHAMMED: Exactly. Yeah.

MG: One of the wealthiest cities in the world. And yet that's the solution that you can offer people. What does that tell you about the state of a city like the one that we're in right now?

MOHAMMED MOHAMMED: When I used to hear famine and drought and lack of affordability, I thought it was in a different country, but I never thought it would come and face me in Toronto. And that's exactly what's happening. So it's really sad and we need a real solution.

MG: Thank you very much.

[Applause]

MG: Do you mind me asking, Bryan, you live in this community? How what we're talking about impacts you?

BRYAN DOUTHWRIGHT: It impacts me. I'm still at home with my parents. I rent from them the basements for very low cost because my parents. But, yeah, I'm not moving out anytime soon.

MG: Do you want to move out?

BRYAN DOUTHWRIGHT: Yeah. I'm 30 years old. Of course.

MG: I'm sure your parents are lovely and they're happy to have you at home too.

BRYAN DOUTHWRIGHT: But I would love to move out. But there's right now, with my current salary, I could get somewhere that's relatively affordable. But then I'd just be subject to a rent increase every six months to a year, and then eventually I'd be priced out.

MG: You're part of a group, Sharlene, that is withholding its rent.

SHARLENE HENRY: Yes, I.

MG: Am. Tell me about the rent strike.

SHARLENE HENRY: So I'm the co-chair of the York Southwestern Tenant Union, and we have two buildings right here in the community, right here by the Artscape that are on a red strike, 33 Kings Street and 22 Johns Street.

[Applause and cheers]

MG: This is a story that's made news across the city, certainly, but across the country as well. Why are you doing this? Why are you withholding your rent?

SHARLENE HENRY: Well, we're in two different buildings and they're two different circumstances. So at 33 King Street where I reside, we have the most above guideline increases in the city of Toronto.

MG: Can you just explain what that means? What an above guideline increases is?

SHARLENE HENRY: And above guideline increase is something that a landlord can apply for when they've done capital expenditure repairs on a building. And unfortunately our building has had the most in the past decade. And when I think about it, my son is ten years old, so in the past decade we have had six.

MG: How much is your rent going up?

SHARLENE HENRY: My rent is going up by each year, the guideline. So last year was 2.5% plus an additional 3%.

MG: It's a serious thing to withhold your rent. Yes.

SHARLENE HENRY: Yes, it is.

MG: Do you worry that in not paying the rent you could be evicted?

SHARLENE HENRY: I personally don't worry about it. I know that there's power in what I'm doing. Folks in the building are very worried. We have a very mixed bunch of folks that live in this community within a community. There's over a thousand people living in our building from everywhere in the world and from every background and every socioeconomic status. So folks worry about that letter coming in their door telling them they have to leave. What we're doing is a powerful thing in this community. And I've had strangers come up to me in the community and say, Good for you at the park. Families come up and say, good for you guys. Keep fighting this fight because Western is our home. It's where we live. It's where we're raising our families, where people have already raised their families and we just love it.

MG: We did ask your landlord Dream Unlimited to be here tonight. They declined our invitation, but they sent us a statement that outlines some of the accommodations that they've made to tenants who would be facing financial hardship. They also said that they've created 40% affordable units at one of the buildings that is on the rent strike. What do you want from landlords to keep the cost of rent down in a community like this? What do you want them to do?

SHARLENE HENRY: So specifically, we want our landlord to meet us at the negotiation table and discuss our demands with them.

MG: They might say, Why should we negotiate something with you? We're the landlords. We set the rent, you pay the rent or you live somewhere else. You said that people are coming up to you in the street and they're congratulating you. Tell me about about that power that you think you have.

SHARLENE HENRY: Well, there's the power in a collective organisation. We're attending association and we're a tenant union of 14 buildings across this neighbourhood. And we live here. We pay rent, we shop in the neighbourhood, we go to the parks, we use all the services in the built in the neighbourhood. And this is our home. This is our home. I've talked to people in my building who've lived there for 35 years. How can you outraced the people who live here? And I'm finding that our pricing is to people who look like me, who are people of colour, who are trying to raise their family in this city where it's opportunity for our families, they're trying to send us where where are we going to go?

MG: Where would you go, if you were to leave?

SHARLENE HENRY: There's nowhere for us to go.

MG: If you're priced out in that building. Where would you go?

SHARLENE HENRY: There's nowhere for us to go. Where are we going to go? In the province of Ontario. Someone who is like me, someone who works in the GTA, my partner works in the GTA. Where are we going to go? If we go an hour and a half or two hours, northeast, south or west of this city? What is our commute like to get back in? Both parents coming into the city every day on that highway. Who's going to take care of our children? What child care are we going to get? Who's going to come with us to help us in our family? Let me tell you, I have a mother. She's not leaving Toronto. She's not leaving here until she's going in the ground. She's not leaving the city is her city as far as she's concerned. She's not coming with me north or south, east or west. So who helps us with our family? This is our home. And I'm going to fight till the end for it.

MG: Sharlene, thank you very much. Bryan Douthwright is advocacy manager at the Western King Neighbourhood Centre. Charlene Henry is co-chair of the Western Tenants Union. We're going to come to the audience, but first we want to talk to Tony Irwin. He can speak to some of the concerns that we've heard about the increase in the cost of rent. He's President and CEO of the Federation of Rental Housing Providers of Ontario. Interim president of the National Body representing commercial landlords. We're glad to have you here. Thank you very much.

TONY IRWIN: Nice to be here.

MG: You playing an interesting role in this conversation. I'm not going to say that you're a villain, but you're representing some people who, as you just heard, some some folks in this in this community have issues with. We'll get to specifics in a moment. But when you hear someone like Sharlene say, this is my community, I'm staying here and I'm going to do things like not pay my rent because I need to be able to negotiate that and meet with the landlords to let me stay here. What's your response?

TONY IRWIN: I think it's a very difficult situation for many people. I think we've heard a lot of stories tonight that are heart wrenching. Many people are struggling. And we know that for those who provide rental housing, they have their own set of challenges as well. Their costs have been going up dramatically over the last number of years. They have to pay to operate and run these buildings. So it matters a really difficult situation.

MG: Let's talk about the cost of rent in the city of Vancouver. A two bedroom apartment rents for about $4,000. City of Toronto, about $3500. Victoria $2900. Halifax $2200. Rents in Toronto have gone up something like 9.9% year after year. Almost 11% in British Columbia. Why are rents going up so quickly?

TONY IRWIN: The easiest answer for that is, you know, chronic lack of supply. We have an under building proposal rental housing in Canada for decades. We need far more of it and we need more housing of all types. That's pretty clear. But rental housing is the most affordable housing option there is, and we need a lot more of it.

MG: If somebody says, well, this is just because landlords want to make more money, is that the answer to that?

TONY IRWIN: Well, I mean, if you look in Ontario, 90% of their rental stock was built before 1980. The vast majority of residents in the province are rent controlled. Yes, there are units that were built more recently that are not. But if they weren't for an exemption from rent control, they wouldn't be built. And so, yes, we have to have a mix of housing that can work for different people and we can get into lots of partnerships of housing that has been built in Toronto and Vancouver and elsewhere, where they were partnerships between all levels of government, private sector non-profits that provide for affordable units for 20, 25 years. There are creative solutions to get affordable units built that involve all parties, and we need to focus on doing a lot more of that.

MG: You talked about the cost pressures that landlords would be facing. Tell me about that. What? What are they up against?

TONY IRWIN: I mean, you know, whether it be property taxes, you know, insurance, utilities, you know, cost of operations, salaries, all these costs are going up. Everyone is facing these issues in their own personal lives, and so are people that are owning their own apartment buildings.

MG: But many of your members are major corporations. They're huge operations. There might be real estate investment trusts. They make millions and millions of dollars a year in profits. Is it at all fair to say that they're hurting?

TONY IRWIN: So first of all, that, of course, is not all landlords.

MG: And certainly not, I said many.

TONY IRWIN: Assure and many Canadians do have pensions or they're invested in those in some of those funds. It's a big part of the retirement plan. There are many Canadians who benefit from those funds, but there's no doubt it's a complicated conversation and it's not one size fits all, and there's not necessarily a one size fits all solution.

MG: So there are landlords who are doing quite well because of the high cost.

TONY IRWIN: Of well, there are landlords who are able to obviously, you know, produce returns to their investors, allow them to be able to get more capital, to build more housing, to invest in housing. I mean, that is, of course, how the private market functions. So other companies that are doing that and who are revitalising old stock, that needs major money to do that. Yes, there are companies that are able to do that.

MG: Tell me about that, because you'll often hear and that's why people will apply for an above guideline increase, is that they would say work needs to be done. We have to fix the balconies. We're trying to retrofit the building. We're trying to make the building greener. What's the work that's being done that would lead a landlord, a major landlord to apply for those above guidelines?

TONY IRWIN: It is all those sorts of things. It's balconies, it's underground parking garages, you know, the number of of things, the list that qualifies has been reduced over the years. It's a smaller and smaller list. But we are, you know, HVAC systems, boilers, major investments that need to be made in older buildings. And as I said earlier, now that our stock is as old as it is, these investments are needed much more often and requiring, you know, significant dollars.

MG: Do you think that landlords should negotiate with their tenants about how much the rent goes up?

TONY IRWIN: I think rent housing providers should always be open to speaking with their residents.

MG: Do you think they should negotiate with tenants about how much the rent should go up?

TONY IRWIN: I think that's an issue for them to discuss. I don't think that's for me to say whether they should do that or not. But I would encourage our members always to engage in conversations with their residents so that they can have happy residents living in their homes and are able to pay their rent.

MG: People have talked about the need for more supply that if you increase supply, this would help bring down costs. Do you think your members would lower rents if there was more competition? If I can put it that way.

TONY IRWIN: I think they would be forced to. That's how I think that's how private markets work. If there's more competition. There were times in Toronto. Once upon a time when, you know, incentives were being given. Large screen TVs, things to get people to rent because there was more supply. At that time, we don't have that.

MG: Kind of seems like a long time.

TONY IRWIN: It does. But it's been in it's been in my lifetime. And even during the pandemic, there were incentives being offered because of what people were doing. And we don't want to get back to that. That was a very obviously difficult period for everyone. My point is being that more supply does mean there are more options and it will impact prices. It's not the you know, we still need to look at how we can make units affordable for long periods of time, but I think more supply definitely helps.

MG: What do you want to say to the people in this community who feel like they're being priced out as somebody who is representing some of those major landlords? What would you say to them?

TONY IRWIN: You know, I feel for for so many people who I've heard stories from and talk to about their daily challenges. Right. It's not I don't think it's the city or the society or the country that we want. I think we can do better. I think we want to do better. And I certainly feel for people who are feel like they have nowhere to go, feel like they are being forced out. No one wants to feel that way. No one wants to feel insecure in their housing. I like us to be on the same side, to say, Look, we all want to get to the same place. We may not always agree on how to get there, but we all we want to see we want to get to the same outcome. How can we do that together?

MG: Are you optimistic that that's going to happen?

TONY IRWIN: We've got to be optimistic. What choice have we got? I've got kids. A lot of people here have kids. We need to be optimistic to figure this out. I'm going to have the same situation. I have five kids, blended family. Are they going to be my basement? Dear God, where am I going to be?

MG: Your voice in this is is important to be part of this conversation. Thank you very much. Thanks, man. Tony Erwin, president and CEO of the Federation of Rental Housing Providers of Ontario and interim president of the Canadian Federation of Apartment Associations. So we've heard some different views on this. We want to hear from you in the audience. Hi. Go ahead. Tell us your story.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 2: I'm like 28 years old and unfortunately, I did get laid off and luckily I get to live with my parents. But in the last couple of months, I used up all my savings. And then at the same time it's like, am I ever going to have a family? Like, am I ever going to get married and have kids and all of that. So just really a tough situation. Yeah.

MG: When you dream about your future, what's the dream that you want to land on?

AUDIENCE MEMBER 2: You just want to be in a comfortable situation. Like you want to know that you can count like on your family and just still have a living, like affordable living like you just want to be content with life. That's what you want.

MG: You know, you're 28. I mean, you have your whole life ahead of you.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 2: I know, but I'm like stressing out 28. Like, I feel like I can't really have that.

MG: Do you feel like you have a future here?

AUDIENCE MEMBER 2: No.

MG: No.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 2: Like I had my siblings who all moved out. They kind of went to Dubai and like, different countries because they feel like it's easier over there. So I feel like maybe that's like where I'm going to go in the future. So like go back home or something.

MG: Thank you very much. We have another question in the back. Hi, go ahead.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 3: I'm a business owner as well. I live in the community. I have a risk based service of the day program for children with special need. And I've seen the some of the sacrifice some of the parents have to make with cutting off. Some want some some sessions for their kids so they can make up ends meet as well as the rent.

MG: And you see that on a on a regular basis.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 3: On a regular basis. On a weekly basis, I've had parents call me up and ask me for even for support and discount. And not only that, but just for them to just take out some of the kids our attending five days a week or not attending three times a week to sometimes coming down to twice a week because of that affordability.

MG: What do you see as the future of this community if those sorts of challenges are really presenting themselves to you?

AUDIENCE MEMBER 3: The future of the community, that a lot of people are going to leave the community? Simple as that. And that's the problem, right? This is the community that's vibrant, a community that's well connected. There's a community that's very colourful, not just in race, not just in gender, not just in in backgrounds. So that that impact where you're going to see is a lot of people are going to be this community going to have a different turn out in the future and honestly starting to see that one at a time. We when we got to time.

MG: Hi, go ahead.

AUDIENCE MEMBER $: Back in the seventies, I grew up in Toronto as an immigrant family and we were in community housing right off the bat and it was vibrant. Everybody contributed to the to the community. Toronto was an amazing place to live right into the eighties. My father was the only breadwinner. He worked in the restaurant and hotel industry. We left home and we got ourselves apartments quite young. It's something that is almost impossible today with the residents of Toronto. My brother and my my parents eventually moved to Mississauga and then eventually four hours away to Chatham to find affordable. Place to live. And I'm still here. I'm going to keep fighting personally to stay here because I want to be proud of this city again.

MG: Thank you very much. We're going to hear more from our audience coming up. First, your regional update and then we've heard about the crisis when it comes to affordable housing, the lack of housing, what happens when people can't find affordable housing? What's it going to take to build the housing that you need at prices that you could actually afford? Some optimism, which is in short supply, but we're going to try and give it to you coming up. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to a special edition of The Current. This is at what Cost: the Housing crisis and Your community.

Back To Top »

At what cost? The Housing Crisis and Your Community – Pt. 3

Guests: Jeff Brenner, Heather Tremain, Ene Underwood

MG: I'm Matt Galloway. This is a special edition of The Current. At what cost? The housing Crisis in your community. We are at Artscape Weston Common in Toronto.

[Applause]

MG: So the stat that you've probably heard is that we need to build three and a half million homes across this country by 2030 might be more than that. And that number probably will keep going up and up and up. We have three people on stage with us now who are working hard on solving that problem.Jeff Brenner is a partner at Castlepoint Numa, a Toronto developer that's hoping to build in this neighbourhood. Heather Tremain is the CEO of Options for Homes, their new tower here in Western Open it just last month. Ene Underwood is the CEO of Habitat for Humanity GTA. They have a project underway on Western Road, just a short drive south of here. Thank you all for being here with us tonight. Heather. We need more houses. We need a lot more houses and homes and apartments and everything in between. What's the number one barrier to building housing in this in this region? The housing that's in particular affordable?

HEATHER TREMAIN: Do I only get one?

MG: We could talk about a number, but the one that's screaming to you, the big kind of flashing light.

HEATHER TREMAIN: There's a couple, I would say one that we have as a non-profit is access to land because we're competing with the with market developers. So that's one piece. And right now we're in this period where, you know, construction costs have just escalated in an incredible way, double digit inflation over the last number of years. It's like a perfect storm. And then you throw in interest rate increases to that and it's made building incredibly difficult in this market.

MG: All right. Well, pick up on some of that. Ene Underwood. What would you what do you want to add to that?

ENE UNNDERWOOD: Land time and money.

MG: Land time and money. Walk us through those.

ENE UNNDERWOOD: Heather picked up nicely on land. Governments need to continue to be more intentional about making that land available. And when they're putting it out on the market, put it out of the market with in the end a requirement of what percent of affordable time is. It takes too long to get anything approved and that costs us money.

MG: So how long does it take to get something approved?

ENE UNNDERWOOD: Minimum five or six years. We build projects much faster than it takes to get approved, and that's money. So the increase that Heather talked about in the increase in construction costs, it translates in the cost for us to deliver an affordable home and then out prices. Some of the very people that we were hoping to help out because of the time that passes for approval.

MG: Why does it take a minimum of five years as a housing crisis to have a project approved?

ENE UNNDERWOOD: A lot of people trying really hard to do their jobs well, but collectively in Canada, we are not good at this. It takes three times longer to approve a building permit in Canada or to get all the way to a building permit three times as long in Canada is U.S. four times as long as in Finland and Norway. We need to do better culturally in our municipalities at being able to figure out how do we expedite housing, how do we say yes to housing and subordinate some of the yes spots? Though I'm new here, I didn't see the file before. Now I need to spend six months looking at it. But the other part of time is what people listening can can also influence. You know, time is also influenced a lot by what people say can and can't be built in their neighbourhood. So we have a development west of here, 12 new homes on a dead end street with 15 homeowners living on it. And one homeowner felt it was going to be too much new traffic from those 12 homes. And that protest cost us nine months turns into money, turns into time.

MG: Sometimes people call that NIMBYism.

ENE UNNDERWOOD: Sometimes we do. I'll hit the third one, though. I said land time and money. And on the money, governments inadvertently have become, in my view, overdependent on the revenues that come from housing. So this is a really difficult situation where governments want to fix the problem, but the increase in the cost of housing has increased government revenues. We at Habitat for Humanity average $150,000 in the Greater Toronto area of government fees before land, before the cost to build it. So nobody intended. Someone said really well, no one intended for this to happen, but this is where we are. And so we now collectively have to push hard on it. I'm 60 years old, so I'm one of the oldest people in this room. People my age, we had a really different deal. And I am so sorry for those of you who are younger that that the world has changed so much. People my age have a legacy to create, and we need to say how can we help and influence the future? How can we say yes to homes, more homes in our neighbourhoods? How can we challenge our local politicians on government fees to say, How can we change that? What more do I need to pay so that the next generation can have the opportunities that people are rightly describing tonight that you so deserve?

[Applause]

MG: There's a lot in there. Jeff, you're a developer. You work in the building of these homes. What is something we don't know about why it's taking so long to build affordable housing across this country?

JEFF BRENNER: You know, I thought my fellow panellist did a very good job on that costs. Right. So interesting. I think we talked a lot about affordable housing. You know, you can't at least I don't think you can separate that from market housing. You need both. And we really do believe it's a supply and demand issue. Housing isn't immune to that kind of fundamental economic principle. I think one thing that's maybe not top of mind for a lot of people, even if we approved all the developments that are applied for right now are construction industry is at capacity.

MG: In terms of skilled trades, in.

JEFF BRENNER: Terms of skilled trades. So, you know, we have an amazing immigration policy here in Canada. That's what I believe. I would ask the federal government to start indexing, to expedite skilled trades, skilled labourers, because we need to increase that capacity if we're going to come close to hitting the supply.

MG: What is it? What have the high interest rates done in terms of slowing projects? I've heard that because interest rates are high. There are some projects where developers have pump. The brakes just pushed things down the road.

JEFF BRENNER: Many, many projects. So both on the rental and condo side. You know, two different products and they have different considerations on the condo side. You know, typically the way that works is you will go out and do a sales launch and you'll look to sell 70% of those units before you even put a shovel in the ground. And just everyone knows that's actually a requirement from the bank in order for us to go and get a bank financing. We need to hit certain thresholds. We also need to show certain profit margins in order for the bank to give that loan. On the rental side, you know, it's certainly on the construction loan. It has a huge impact on the cost.

MG: I was saying earlier that the mortgages that people are carrying in this city that we're in right now, 800 and some thousand dollars is eyewatering amounts of money. One of the things that that options for homes does is help people along with that. Tell me we were in your building in this community, which is a beautiful building and that new building smell because I think just moving in. How does options or homes work?

HEATHER TREMAIN: Yeah. So someone talked before about how most people are buying homes, are now buying it, you know, with the bank of mom and dad. Well, we're kind of like the bank of mom and dad. So we're a non-profit, and I'm going to give a simple example. So the mythical let's imagine that there is a condominium unit for $100,000 and it's going to cost, let's say, $85,000 to build it. And so there's this $15,000, what would typically be a profit or a margin. And we actually lend that to our purchasers so that they put their 5% down and then we lend them that $15,000 and that forms a significant down payment and then they can go get a conventional mortgage.

MG: And so for those people that you're helping out without that, is there any way that they would be able to get into that game?

HEATHER TREMAIN: No, no.

When you think of the people that you're helping, how would you characterise them in terms of where they're at in their life, their career, what have you?

HEATHER TREMAIN: Yeah, so a lot of times people are into their forties, so they've been long term renters who've worked to save. We also have a lot of single parent families, so often women led families. So 56% of our purchasers are women who are probably more like less likely to purchase on their own. And I think the one thing that we're really proud of is that 56% of our purchasers identify as bipoc. And so those are communities that often don't have families that have owned.

MG: So there's no bank of mom and dad.

HEATHER TREMAIN: Like in the black community, 44% of people are homeowners where, as in the rest of Canada, the homeownership rate is in the high sixties or seventies. Same for indigenous populations. So there is no bank of mum and dad. If you don't have a parent who owns, you're probably less likely to be a purchaser.

MG: If you are able to move somebody from a rental into a home that they own. What does that do for the larger issue of people finding somewhere to live?

HEATHER TREMAIN: I think it does a few things. I think it you know, it obviously creates that opportunity for someone to put down roots for themselves in a community. And then it also creates this churn in the rental market. So I like to say to policymakers, we're the cheapest rental unit you'll ever find because we're going to free up a rental unit somewhere else.

MG: Which isn't happening because people can't afford to get out of that place that they're in.

HEATHER TREMAIN: Yeah, yeah. So we've we're creating that kind of churn. We're one of the few organisations that's actually delivering new supply. A lot of times programs help people to become homeowners by giving them a down payment, but that doesn't produce a new unit, which is what we're. Trying to do as well.

MG: So when we were in your building here in Weston, we were just wandering around. I mean, a lovely place to be.

HEATHER TREMAIN: Otherwise, I'd be worried about the security.

MG: We were knocking on doors, talking to people, including somebody who's here with us in the audience, Martha Gardner. Hi, Martha.

MARTHA GARDNER: Hi there. Nice to see.

MG: You. It's great to see you again. Pick up on a little bit of what Heather was saying. Would you have been able to get into your unit without the assistance of options for homes?

MARTHA GARDNER: Oh, no, definitely not. I'm very grateful. Two options. I decided five years ago I wanted to own by the time I'm 50. So I borrowed from my dad's line of credit a down payment, and then Options helped me with the other 15%. And I was able to get a mortgage for 400,000.

MG: What does this meant for your life? We were there in your beautiful apartment. The sun streaming in. The sun was there. What was it? What is this meant for you?

MARTHA GARDNER: Well, I had no idea what it would feel like. My friends kept saying, When you own something changes, you're going to feel different. And I feel. I don't know. I feel calm. I feel stable. I'm not going to be asked to leave my rent. You know, it's not going to go up. I feel like I'm part of a community and I'm creating my home. I don't know. It's just a different feeling. It's been nice.

MG: Fantastic. Thank you very much. Habitat has a similar kind of model in some ways. Tell us a little bit about how how you help people get into a place that that might seem way beyond that horizon.

ENE UNNDERWOOD: We are helping people who are working, who are busy paying rent now, but not in a position to be able to save a down payment, to be able to have an affordable mortgage that's going to be based on household income. So, you know, not more than 32% that's going to go to housing. So what we do, whether it's at Habitat GTA or it's in Alberta, as in Prince Edward Island or it's a wing of my hometown, shout out to Wingham. What we do is, is help families get a mortgage. That's, as I said, based on the income. So here in the GTA, that mortgage is probably somewhere between 200,000 and 350,000. In smaller communities across Canada, it might be 150,000 and it might be, you know, smaller communities, it might be incomes that are 40 to $65000.

MG: That's not the case here. Did I read that? Habitat is backstopping families that might have an income of upwards of $100,000.

ENE UNNDERWOOD: Yeah, and of course not. That's not the case with all of our families. Like even as we speak in Oshawa, we're finishing a project there. People can qualify with incomes as low as 65,000.

MG: [Cross talking] but for family income, it's a lot of money.

ENE UNNDERWOOD: It is. And I think--

MG: Know that they need that kind of assistance to get into into that market.

ENE UNNDERWOOD: I think it picks up on some of the themes from your earlier speakers. It's you know, if you have someone who's a personal service worker and married to someone who's an IT technician, you know, maybe between them, that's $80,000 of salary. They have two children. So there's, you know, another $15,000 of child tax benefit there in 95, even $100,000 family. But as you heard from folks earlier, unless they were lucky enough, they rented a place ten years ago that happened to be a three bedroom apartment for the two or three children they've now had. They're going to be living in a situation, as we heard. So what we do at Habitat is to say, okay, we can help by creating that affordable mortgage. So here it may be an $800,000 three bedroom townhouse. It might be more than that will backstop the difference. You'll have a $250,000 mortgage. You'll pay your $250,000 mortgage. The other one will sit without any interest on it until such time you finish paying the first mortgage. So that in simple terms, is how we work. So no down payment, a mortgage that that you can afford. And and then we backstop the rest and ask both governments and philanthropists to support us to help do more.

MG: And that's life changing for people.

ENE UNNDERWOOD: And it is life changing. Yeah. And I think one of the challenges is a lot of people, you know, because Habitat's a charity, I think there's a sense of, okay, well, I don't need charity. The charity part is just that we ask philanthropists, people who are doing well to help, but the homeowner experience is work hard, buy a home. And exactly what we heard from Heather's owner, congratulations. Just that that pride of homeownership, that being part of a community with people with similar values and aspirations to you, your kids having a place to be able to study you, having a place to disappear and have a bit of space away from your children. That's what we are trying to deliver and do have a lot of great stories at Habitat. And by the way, ten more units going in the market here in Weston in the next month or so. And we have 20 that folks are going to move in quite soon down the road.

MG: Jeff, when we talk about developments, you'll often hear new development going up and it's got 40 affordable units, 20% affordable units, 10% affordable units. If you're a developer and you're creating affordable units, what does that do to your profit?

JEFF BRENNER: It's about 150,000 minimum to $200,000 loss per unit. And so the challenge right now is it's hard to make market product work like both rental and condo. You know, it's kind of almost this perfect storm where we've seen massive increase in interest rates, 40% increase in construction costs, and then the development charges to go up 50% in the last five years. You know, something needs to break or what's actually happening is just supply is not getting delivered.

MG: We encouraged by the federal government announcing that GST and then you saw provincial governments follow with the HST being removed from construction for new builds that are affordable.

JEFF BRENNER: Hugely encouraged to costs on purpose built rental, it's about 10% of costs, how it kind of works out. So I would say today what it means is any projects that were kind of on the edge of go no go will actually now be a go. I don't think it's a panacea. There's still a lot of projects even with that, that aren't going to go and break ground. So we're going to need to continue to see these types of leadership from our government on getting that that supply.

MG: Where's that revenue going to be made up, though? That's the other part. I mean, it's not as though, you know, those taxes and those fees go into supporting the things that people rely on as part of a broader society. So do you see your role in that as well as in trying to figure out how to how to balance the scale for sure?

JEFF BRENNER: Well, I would say a couple of things. One. The good news about more supply getting delivered. There's more homes, there's more property taxes to to create revenue for the government. You know, on the developer side, all these costs, they just become parsers. And one of the big reasons for that is, you know, when we go for a construction loan with a bank, they need to see a certain profit margin or they will not give us that loan because development is inherently risky. You can't actually go and qualify for a loan from the bank unless you're shown a certain profit margin. So in order to get that unlocked, we definitely need those government initiatives.

MG: I want to get back to something that Ian said before we go to the audience, and that is you were talking about rethinking. We need, we broadly, as Canadians need to rethink some things about housing. And part of this is about where we'll put housing. We're in in Toronto, huge protests around, you know, the so-called green belt just outside the city of Toronto protected land. The premier said that that was going to be moved into ostensibly for housing, huge protests. He had to back off of that. How do we as Canadians need to rethink how we think about housing?

ENE UNNDERWOOD: First, we start by asking the question just as you did. And and you're right in my neighbourhood, I'm sure in lots of neighbourhoods in Toronto, we see that we've seen those signs of, you know, hands off the greenbelt. And but you're right, the other sign needs to be please double the number of homes on my street or please double the number of homes in my community.

MG: Do you think you'd see that sign on your street?

ENE UNNDERWOOD: I am, I am. I'm just pointing out like we as as Ontarians, we've made a choice, right? We've made a choice in the last week and said we we want to protect this this area. So so that does mean now we have to say, but we need homes for people, as we've heard so eloquently tonight. And it shouldn't just be people use the phrase tall and sprawl. We need to find a way to make mid-rise affordable, which right now it isn't. We do need to create more density in our communities. We need to speed things up in terms of how long it takes to get something approved. And yes, we need to spend some money in affordable housing. And when we do and we heard it from speakers tonight, people do well, and when people do well, they spend more, they make more money. We get the taxes back. But it does begin with all of us in the conversation tonight telling our politicians what we need and what we will support. And again, a shout out for people in my age group we have benefited most and we owe it to this country. We love to ask for the next generation and the generation after that to enjoy the same life. It'll look different in terms of housing, but it can be the same in terms of community and prosperity.

MG: well said.

[Applause]

MG: Time for a few questions and stories in our audience. Hi. Go ahead.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 5: Hi. I'm speaking as someone that grew up in this neighbourhood but had to move out because I couldn't afford it. So it's already happened to me and that colours how I see things. So one of the things I want to push back, it's always, always supply based solutions, right? We have to give more tax cuts. We have to do this. We have to. Government needs to give more land. Really, I think the best illustration is one of the buildings in there is an excellent rent strip is built under a city program with municipal land with funding from the city. I actually was looking at that building and I noticed that one bedroom was $3100 a month. And it just hurts me because I know there are people there are they cannot afford that but want to stay in the neighbourhood. I think we need a two pronged approach. For the long term. How about something like the Vienna program, where I believe up to 70% of housing in the city is actually government owned and built. The other problem is we need solutions now. So vacancy control so that if I move out of my crappy basement apartment, the rent doesn't go up 250%. Or actual proper rent control. What we have is a system where landlords can just say, well, okay, there is a guideline increase that landlord tenant or published, but I'm just going to apply for something higher. And in the meantime, while there are backlogs in the landlord tenant board, the tenants are going to have to pay. So win win for me, if we really rely on a profit driven motive to build housing. Why are we surprised when the profit motive demands that the rent goes up continuously? [Applause]

MG: Thank you very much. Thank you. Hi. Go ahead.

AUDIENCE MEMBER ^: Hi. My name's Kat. I'm also a member of the York Southwestern Tenant Union. And as someone who's lived here my whole life, if this is what the policy advisors and the housing advocates and our government is saying is the only solution, then I'm looking at my future. I'm looking at my children's future. And I am not optimistic. It is frustrating when you hear that the policies that are being presented are more breaks for developers. It's frustrating. Tell me, as a tenant, when have you gotten help in the last five years? Not at all. In fact, in the last five years, our government has not only given tenants no help, they have reduced and cut the only policies that have helped tenants like rent control. And we need to come together, like the York Southwestern Tenant Union and my neighbours on rent strike are doing to demand better. And that's where I see hope not.

[Applause]

MG: Thank you very much. Thank you. Just before we go, we've heard extraordinary stories of what that affordability crisis means to people and what they're up against when it comes to solutions. And I'll start with you, Jeff. I mean, some pretty pointed criticism directed at developers getting breaks. Not passing those along. What do you see as the role of the development industry or a developer like yourself in helping to create affordability?

JEFF BRENNER: The good news is that developers are aligned with a lot of these conversations because I don't know any that don't want to deliver more homes for the city and all them realise in order for a good functioning city you need to give housing to all kinds of income levels and socioeconomic situations. You know, a lot of developers aren't against affordable housing. It's just there's a reality of the numbers. And in order to make the financing work we do. If we're going to deliver more affordable, we need the government to meet us partway on that.

MG: Heather, what's at stake if we don't deal with this in a meaningful way, in an intentional way, but in a time frame, as I say, that's reasonable.

HEATHER TREMAIN: You know, when I go to the bank, darkest thoughts about it. I think, you know, there's generational inequities. Like I think we already see this sort of, you know, pitting young against the old, older people, the sort of inequalities like what we say that we're trying to do and options is trying to address wealth inequality. And I think, you know, in the ownership space, if we have people if we continue to shunt people out of the market, I think we will create this society that continues to be more inequitable. And I think fundamentally, I don't think of that as as Canadian. Like I think there's a kind of redefinition of who we would be. I think if we continue to to kind of let things go as they are, I think it will really be, you know, a lot more people living, you know, precariously and a lot more wealth on the other side. And I don't think that's who we really are as a country.

MG: Ene, what about for you? Are you optimistic? But when you go to those dark thoughts, I mean, what happens if we don't deal with this? What happens if we let it fester for another 30 years?

ENE UNNDERWOOD: Every time a new habitat homeowner moves into their home and says, I didn't think that this could ever happen to us, it makes me optimistic because of the power and the magnitude of that change for that household. You know, there's that saying about the best time to plant a tree was ten years ago. The second best time is today. And it is today. The source of optimism, though, I think is is what we've heard in this room tonight, though, the degree of mobilisation of citizens, the fact that all levels of government are saying we know we have to do something. We've never needed to make change more. We have never been talking about making change more. And now we have to transact that in plant the tree and trees in the ground and let's get on with it.

MG: Let's get on with it. I'm really glad to have you all here. Thank you very much.

HEATHER TREMAIN: Thank you. Thank you.

MG: Jff Brenner is a partner at Castle Point. Heather Tremain, CEO of Options for Homes and Ene Underwood, is the CEO of Habitat for Humanity, GTA. We spent a good chunk of time here in this room talking about affordability. If you are having a difficult time affording where you live, if you're feeling stressed by the cost of rent, if you are being forced out of the community that you love because you can't afford to be where you are. Tell us your experience and share solutions If you have thought of them as well. Send us an email or a voice memo to thecurrent@cbc.ca. We want to thank this amazing audience here with us in Weston. Thank you very much for giving it up.

[Applause]

MG: This is a great, great community and we feel honoured and blessed to have been welcomed here. We want to thank as well our technical and production team special thanks to The Current's producers Julie Chrysler and Kate Cornick, who worked very, very hard to put this program together. Shout out as well to our executive producer who oversees all. Lara O'Brien. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. This is a special edition of The Current. At what cost? The Housing Crisis and Your Community. Take care.

Back To Top »

Provide Transcript Feedback

CBC would like to acknowledge the support of the Broadcasting Accessibility Fund.

Wednesday September 27, 2023 Full Transcript

More Stories Like This