People Need to Change:
A wise friend once told me “people don’t hate change, they hate being changed”.
There is just this natural reaction to pull back, to resist. People want to feel in control. It’s almost reflexive to resist without even thinking. If I pull your arm, you’ll pull back. We resist being changed. But if I tell you the light above you looks like it’s about to fall, you have no issue moving. It’s not so much that we hate change, but being changed.
So, when we hear about new plans, about growth, about what’s going to happen, I think a lot of us reflexively pull back. We resist.
And to be clear, I get it. You may not have asked for the community to grow. It’s not like we held a referendum on it. You love the community as it is and constantly being told that it needs to change, whether you want it to or not, is tough.
But it’s not that the community is going to change, it’s that it already has changed and we can’t ignore that there is a light falling on the Region and we all need to take steps to get out of the way.
The Waterloo Region Community Foundation has some amazing community data on housing in the Region. Did you know that our population grew by 62,900 people over the past two years? Did you know that during that same time we had 9,500 housing starts? And did you also know that in Ontario there is on average of about 2.6 people per home? If we look at growth vs starts over the past two years we were short over 14,000 homes if we assume 2.6 people per home – 14,692 to be more precise.
And you might say "well that's rather convenient timing to choose, Phil, considering we made up ground in 2021" and in a way you’re right. We did make up ground in 2021, but we also lost ground for the preceding five years meaning we've lost ground seven of the last eight years.
What's the total shortfall if we start looking from 2016 when we see our first real jump in population? That would be 16,523 homes.
The light is already falling and we need to change how we think about housing. We can’t focus on back yards, parking spaces, and garages if we want to get this crisis under control. Because whatever we do today doesn’t mean we have more housing tomorrow, or next week, or next month, or even next year! We need to remember whatever we are starting today is to solve what housing will be in two to five years from now.
I can’t make you change. I can’t force you to support more density or less parking spots. I can’t force you to support change in your neighbourhood. I can’t force you to change your opinions on housing or the imminent catastrophe we face. But I am going to keep pointing to the falling light and ask you to change yourself.
Philip Mills, CEO Habitat Waterloo Region
