Housing is on fire:
Last week, the Region decided to continue their efforts to address chronic homelessness by extending funding for their Erb Street shelter. They plan to keep the site open until at least 2030 while also committing to bettering the standard of living at the shelter. Seems like a good idea.
Not too surprisingly, some disagree.
Housing is one of the most significant challenges facing both our community and country. In many ways, it's at the core of numerous issues we’re struggling with as a Region. Whether it’s staffing shortages, addiction and mental health struggles, the rising cost of living, or homelessness, housing is central to them all.
So how do we fix housing? I have an idea, but first, let’s talk about firetrucks.
Firetrucks are, obviously, better than buckets of water for putting out fires. If my house were burning, I’d hope for a firetruck, not a van of buckets.
Our housing system is on fire and all we have are buckets. And because our attention is on putting out fires with buckets of water, it’s difficult for us to find a firetruck. We should have looked for the firetruck before the fire started, but we didn’t.
How does all this relate to fixing housing?
When people try to address housing issues, the struggle boils down to two choices: either focusing on the immediate crisis - the “fire” - or tackling the systemic problem - the “lack of a firetruck.” Unfortunately, these two approaches are often viewed as conflicting, rather than complementary.
Let’s get back to Erb Street. The Region's solution is like using a bucket to put out a fire - it's a tool to deal with the immediate problem. However, there's plenty of criticism about how this isn't the long-term solution, the “firetruck”, we need. People ask “This was meant to be temporary, so what about those still on the street? Why haven't we provided a different type of housing?” In other words, why are we still using a bucket when we need a firetruck?
And this repeats itself in almost every housing plan. New condos? Why aren’t they affordable? New affordable housing? Why this neighborhood? When discussing the need for affordable homeownership, I often hear, “What about homelessness?” or, “Who cares about owning when rent is so high?” Why is this not that and that not this?
We need buckets and firetrucks to fix this issue. We need interventions today, like emergency shelters, more units, and more rent subsidies. We also need system fixes like by-right zoning, faster development approvals, and real pathways to ownership.
Because this is all interconnected.
For folks to move out of shelters, they need affordable places to live. But with rental prices so high, where are they supposed to go? Those already in affordable rental units can't move either, because they have nowhere to go. Have you seen how much it costs to buy a home? It's simply out of reach for most people. Without enough affordable homes to purchase, the whole system gets backed up, creating a bottleneck in affordable rentals, which only drives prices even higher.
So, you want to fix affordable housing? Great, me too.
To make real progress, we must evaluate our solutions for what they truly are instead of wishing a bucket could be a firetruck or vice versa.
Philip Mills, CEO Habitat Waterloo Region
