Advertisement

News

Low-income renters to happy homeowners

Ana Bailão isn’t wasting any time working on solutions to Toronto’s housing crisis.

It was only last week that council appointed the Ward 18 councillor to head up a task force to study ways to avoid a mass sell-off of community housing properties. On Monday she unveiled the results of a survey trumpeting the success of government programs that offer low- and moderate-income renters financial assistance to buy their own homes.

Work on the survey began last spring, and although it’s small in scope, Bailão is hoping it has far-reaching implications.

Since 1992 over 1,100 Torontonians have received money from the federal or provincial government for down payments on apartments or houses. Some 600 have actually completed the move into their new homes, and the survey, the first of its kind in Canada, asked them questions about their transition. Of the 236 respondents, most said that not only were they happier owning their homes, they also felt more financially secure. Some even reported that their children’s performance at school improved.

“We had never measured how well or not well these programs were doing. What we verified is it is having a good impact ,” said Bailão at a press conference Monday morning.

“People feel secure, feel safe, feel pride in their homes. They build equity, they’re responsible. It’s a life-changing initiative.”

The subsidies, on average a $17,600 no-interest loan, were administered by the Toronto Affordable Housing Office through six non-profit groups: Toronto Community Housing, Artscape, Habitat for Humanity, Home Ownership Alternatives, Miziwe Biik, and Women’s Religious Project. Each organization has different eligibility criteria for assistance, but all recipients had income below a certain level and were moving from rental situations. Their average household income was $43,000, and three-quarters said they would not have been able to buy a home without financial support.

Fourteen per cent of the survey’s respondents had previously been renting TCH homes or were on the social housing waiting list, and making the leap into home ownership freed up precious spots for others likely in more dire need.

The survey may indicate that government assistance is successfully moving struggling families into homes, but with 165,000 tenants in TCH properties and all levels of government tightening their belts, it’s unlikely that similar rental-to-ownership programs will be a major part of any fix for the city’s ailing housing system.

The TCH is facing a $750-million repair backlog, and a waiting list over 60,000 people long. There’s simply not enough in government coffers to subsidize home purchases for all of them, and for many tenants home ownership isn’t an appropriate option.

Rather, Bailão says that the positive survey results could be used as leverage to ask the other levels of government to expand financial assistance programs. More importantly, she says, soliciting feedback from the housing system’s clients is the only way to ensure that the city is serving their needs.

“The one thing we’ve done in here, is shown respect for our clients, and brought their voices to the table,” she said.

Advertisement

Exclusive content and events straight to your inbox

Subscribe to our Newsletter

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

By signing up, I agree to receive emails from Now Toronto and to the Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.

Recently Posted