Abandoned buildings and abandoned people

Opinion

On Aug. 26, the street census on homelessness was released and the news isn’t good. Turns out the number of people living on Winnipeg streets has almost doubled in just two years.

Yes, you heard that right. In 2022 there were 1,256 people without shelter. Nearing the end of 2024 there were 2,469 — enough people to fill every seat in the Winnipeg Concert Hall plus standing room. Worse still, a staggering 75 per cent of them were Indigenous.

So much for truth and reconciliation.

And you can bet, with that many people living on the street, there are thousands more just one job loss away from homelessness.

Which, to me, is appalling. It’s appalling because we’re not only willing to tolerate that level of injustice, but worse, whine about our tax dollars being used to support the most vulnerable among us. As if none of us ever had a friend, family member or a loved one who’d on fallen on hard times and needed help.

It’s even more appalling when you listen to government officials proclaiming that it will take another six years to build sufficient housing for the homeless.

Really? Why is it that we managed to house as many as 17,000 victims displaced by this summer’s wildfire crisis, but have to wait six years to house the victims of a homelessness crisis.

Even more puzzling — why are we building new social housing units? Why aren’t we, instead, retrofitting some of the more than 600 abandoned buildings in Winnipeg to provide homes?

Couldn’t the province and city enact tougher laws which allowed them to seize buildings that have stood empty for three years to create supportive housing? Are they really trying to tell us that it’s less expensive and takes less time to do a new build than renovate an old apartment building that stands empty?

And if our politicians grow weak-kneed at the thought of rescinding the rights of private property owners — even when their empty buildings pose a public safety hazard — then why not create incentives for contractors to buy abandoned buildings and renovate them for social housing.

But no, instead, our governments rattle on about a housing crisis which is, primarily, an affordability crisis. In fact, Canada’s housing is among the most unaffordable in the world, with one of the highest price versus income ratios among nations belonging to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

So, do governments really believe that the real estate development industry will change its spots and suddenly make homes more affordable? Are they really aiming for a better cost-to-income ratio for housing?

Well, let’s take a look at the terms of the Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF) to get a sense of how important social and “affordable” housing is to our governments. Apparently, of the almost 2,500 units being built in Winnipeg under HAF, 633 will be “affordable” while another 622 units will be geared to 30 per cent of income.

So, what does “geared to income” really mean? That if I have no income, save what I beg from passing motorists, I’ll pay nothing for one of those 622 units? Even if I managed to land a job at Burger King, would I still be expected to spend 30 per cent of my income on rent. Could I even manage that given the escalating cost of living?

And what precisely does “affordable” mean?

Well, I can give you a little insight into that, based on the multi-unit homes going up in the Glenwood neighbourhood. One of them, a duplex, is currently on the market for $629,000 and will likely go for more.

Based on that asking price, and assuming a 10 per cent down payment, the owner’s monthly mortgage costs would be around $3,600 or more. Include heat and upkeep and they’d need to charge, at minimum, $2,000 a month per unit, just to break even.

Not cheap. Certainly not cheap enough for a full time Walmart associate earning $18 an hour, tops, or even a full time bank teller earning $20 to $25 an hour. Even if Miss Bank-Teller and Mr. Walmart lived together with a couple of kids, they’d barely squeak by with more than 30 per cent of their joint take-home-pay going toward rent.

And I say “squeak by” given that over the past five years, food costs alone have risen by close to 30 per cent.

So, am I surprised there are so many people living on the street? Not particularly. Not given the way we define “affordability” and not when governments think waiting six years to get some 2,400 homeless people housed is perfectly acceptable.

It’s not. None of us should accept it, and all of us should be outraged by it.

Erna Buffie is a writer and filmmaker. Read more @ https://www.ernabuffie.com/

 

Correction: the Think Tank article “Abandoned buildings and abandoned people” inaccurately cited a duplex in Glenwood as an example of housing being funded under the Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF). The unit was not HAF funded. The HAF program only supports rental apartments in multi-family buildings.