A presentation to Owen Sound council this week called for support for non-market affordable housing developers.
Marilyn Struthers, Volunteer Facilitator with the Institute of Southern Georgian Bay, told Owen Sound council that commercial developers cannot afford to build affordable housing in the current environment.
"We're working on increasing the number of lower cost rental developments in the city and in the other municipalities that are part of our work," she explained. "This is the gap that's sometimes called Workforce housing ,matching housing costs to employment income."
Struthers said non-market developers like churches, nonprofits, or co-ops, can use social finance opportunities to create affordable housing.
"Social finance structures such as community bonds, which allow individuals In the community to invest in the kind of housing we need are being used in other communities," she added. "Other kinds of community wealth strategies, including municipal investment."
The institute suggested there needs to be an ecosystem of non-market ownership and land trusts to hold land for non-market development. A regional social finance strategy could also include secured community investment strategies, leveraging and stacking of community owned assets, and social procurement.
Struthers said the lack of affordable accommodations not only creates more homelessness, hunger, and street violence, but also impacts things like healthcare and social services.
"This shortage of lower cost rental is resulting in ballooning wait lists for the County, employee shortages to lack of affordable housing, a shortage of aging in place options for people like me, renovictions, and a decline in small businesses," she expanded.
Part of the reason for a decline in small businesses is diminishing disposable income as housing costs eat up more income. Struthers said figures from BMO showed Canadians spent an average of 35 per cent of pre-tax income on housing prior to the pandemic, but now that figure is 55 per cent of income, leaving less to be spent in local businesses as families redirect spending to shelter.
"Our solution is an increased supply of lower income rental housing, and when you think about that, it can be workforce housing. We need that," she pointed out. "But also for lower income families. Aging place options for older folks, entry level options for young workers and a path out of homelessness."
Grey County Planner Liz Buckton reported over 38 per cent of Owen Sound tenants live in unaffordable housing.
"For the city of Owen Sound, the median household income is $63,000," she noted. "It means that half of Owen Sound's households actually have an income less than that $63,000 a year. And so if we were to look at what is considered to be an affordable housing cost for household at median income, that would be roughly $1,575 a month."
However, the average rental cost in Owen Sound is $1,866 plus utilities.
"Understand that there is quite a large component of individuals that are living in housing where they're spending more than 30 per cent of their income on that housing," Buckton continued. "And if your income is $35,000 a year because you are in a minimum wage role, you're looking for housing at around $800 a month. So clearly there is that disconnect."
Struthers explained it will take the collaboration of many partners to address the crisis, including Owen Sound council.
"To adapt our municipal development practices to really favor this kind of development, to place a priority on affordable development that our communities need in development decisions and policy decisions," she stressed.
"To innovate effectively and meet current challenges to our communities’ sustainability, we need planning mechanisms that allow for both collaboration and a strategy for social investment. Relying on traditional government planning mechanisms that view business development, housing, climate, and social wellbeing as separate planning spheres is no longer enough. It is also not enough to rely on traditional forms of investment. We must understand our municipalities as key actors in strategies of community wealth and wellbeing and develop citizen-engaged cross-sectoral mechanisms that support both private and private investment in ways that our small tax bases cannot," her report stated.