Is Calgary 2025 Affordability Housing Plan Flawed?
While The City of Calgary, Province and Federal governments can find billions for the Green Line, new arena, recreation centres, library, museum as well as and expanded convention centre and theatre complex, why can’t they do the same for affordable housing?
Surely providing safe and adequate housing for everyone should be the City’s, Province’s and Fed’s number one priority given the wealth of our city, province and country.
Yes, they are providing some support, but not on the scale needed.
Affordable Housing Crisis
Bruce Irvine, City of Calgary Manager, Affordable Housing notes “to keep up with current demand for affordable housing Calgary needs about 2,000 new affordable housing homes per year. And since 2011, we have only built an average of 300 per year (from both city and other agencies), a deficit of about 1,700 per year.”
Martina Jileckova, CEO of Horizon Housing and Co-Chair of the Calgary Housing Affordability Council (CHAC) says “based on the fact 17,000 rental households (not homeowners) spend more than 50% of their income on rent, people on AISH (Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped) can only affordable $500/month for rent and 3,000 people sleeping in shelters and on the street, Calgary has an affordable housing problem.”
Bernadette Majdell, CEO of HomeSpace definitely thinks Calgary has an affordable housing crisis. “This was never more evident than when the COVID outbreak happened and the City had to scramble to convert the Calgary Telus Convention Centre and hotels into shelter spaces so the 3,000 Calgarians experiencing homelessness were better able to practice distancing and self-isolation” she noted.
The current cost-per-door for affordable housing in Calgary is about $200,000. This means to address the estimated affordable housing deficiency of 15,000 affordable homes, a 3 billion dollar investment (15,000 new homes X $200,000 = 3 billion) is required.
When you had in land and other costs the city estimates the cost to address the affordable crisis at $4 billion.
Affordable housing can also be attractive housing. Several years ago the Lions Club and NORR Calgary architects upgraded the dreary tiny cottages at the corner of Crowchild Trail and Memorial Drive into an attractive modern low-rise complex for seniors.
Housing for 10,000 Children
In 2016, the City of Calgary after completing extensive research produced the “Foundations for Home Report” that became the City’s affordability housing strategy looking ahead to 2025. It will soon be 2025 and Calgary is nowhere near addressing its lack of affordable housing.
A Housing Needs Assessment conducted by the City in 2018, determined a household requires affordable housing when it earns less than $60,000/year and/or spends more than 30% of gross income on basic shelter costs. It was estimated in 2016, 81,240 Calgary households need affordable housing, and that this number would exceed 100,000 households by 2025.
The Assessment also found 40% of those Calgarians in need of affordable housing actually have a job. They are people working in nursing homes, janitorial services, teacher assistants, early childhood educators, nurse’s aides, bank tellers etc.
These numbers are consistent with the federal government’s 2016 census which found 44% of those living in subsidized housing had jobs.
The census also found 28% have a high school diploma and shockingly, 42% a postsecondary degree or diploma.
Forty percent of the people living in one of the Calgary Housing Corporation’s (CHC) homes are children under the age of 18 - almost 10,000 children. The 2016 census found 28% of Calgarians living in subsidized housing are under the age of 14.
Flawed Goals
One of the stated goals of the “Foundations of Home” report was for the City of Calgary to build 160 new units and support the development of another 1,500 homes by other providers from 2016 to 2018 (or about 830 per year). Strangely, this is less than half of the estimated demand of 2,000 new homes per year.
From Irvine’s perspective, one of the biggest success stories from implementation of this report was the City’s sale of city owned land at less than market value to groups willing to build affordable housing. In 2018, five lots were sold, three to HomeSpace, one to Habitat for Humanity and one to the Homes for Heroes project. In total, these five projects (four are completed and one is under construction) will created 166 new homes for about 500 Calgarians.
While this may seem like a success, it represents just 83 homes/year (about 4% of the annual demand). The City is currently in the process of selling another six sites in 2020 with a projected completion date of 2023 and beyond. Obviously, the City’s “Land Sale” initiative is only creating a small fraction of the affordable housing needed.
There appears to be no strategy to go from 300 per year to 2,000 needed to address the current demand, let alone past deficits. If the average new affordable housing project is about 50 units, it means the city needs to approve 40+ affordable housing projects ( 50 times 40 = 2,000 new homes) per year for the foreseeable future. Just to address the yearly need.
Lawrence Braul, CEO of Trinity Place Foundation of Alberta (TPFA) who has built three new affordable housing projects over the past 20 years estimates it takes about six years to go from securing the funds and site, develop the design, conduct community engagement, tender and build the project.
Based on this timeline, the Calgary needs to have 240 affordable housing projects at various stages of development at any given time to complete the 40 projects per year (average of 50 units per project) to bring-on 2,000 new homes per year. Is this even possible
Braul manages one project at a time and says it is “complex and time consuming,” as he and his team also manage 1654 existing affordable housing homes for high need seniors in 18 buildings.
Partnership & Collaboration
Irvine thinks the only way to address the affordable housing deficit is for the City, Province and Federal governments to not only make affordable housing their number one priority, but to collaborate with various not-for-profits, corporations and housing developers on a scale that has never been seen before.
The Calgary Housing Affordability Council (CHAC) is comprised of 40 different members all of whom have an interest in addressing the affordable Housing deficit. To satisfy the annual demand for affordable housing, each of these groups would have to manage the opening of one new 50 home projects every year.
One of those members is HomeSpace, a non-profit agency which is aggressively building more affordable housing in Calgary. In February 2020, HomeSpace started construction on a 51- home project in the Beltline, which will be completed in 2021. It is their 11th project in less than five years and they currently have four new buildings at various stages of development that will create 200 additional affordable homes.
HomeSpace has developed a successful model that leverages not only their strengths to leverage funding from various sources and community support, but also engages the home builder sector to manage the actual construction of the buildings. To date, they have worked with 11 different Calgary home builders.
Jileckova agrees that partnership and collaboration is the key pointing out the “RESOLVE” fundraising campaign was a huge success with government, non-profits and private sector coming together to raise funds to build affordable housing in Calgary. The private sector, philanthropists and the home builder community raised $74 million, to match the government investment with the goal of building 3,000 affordable rental homes.
Unfortunately, this is a far cry from the $4 billion that is needed, but a step in the right direction.
The home builder companies included Albi Homes (now Albi Luxury by Brookfield), Brookfield Residential, Calbridge Homes, Cardel/Logel Homes, Cedarglen Homes, Hopewell Residential, Homes by Avi, Jayman Master Built (now Jayman Built), Morrison Homes, Shane Homes, and Streetside Developments.
This attractive 48 home affordable housing project in Wildwood along Bow Trail was met with resistance from the community.
Supportive Housing vs Affordable Housing
Braul thinks “Calgarians are experiencing donor fatigue and issue fatigue when it comes to homelessness and affordable housing. Calgary has been working on homelessness for 20+ years and what has been accomplished? Portland Oregon once hailed as the vanguard in addressing homelessness has worked on the problem for 30+ years yet it currently has the largest homessless population per capita in the United States. We need to think differently!”
Edmonton has declared the real issue is a lack of permanent supportive housing. If you are going to address the issue of homelessness, you have to address the needs for permanent supports, which adds cost and complexity. It is not just about housing.
Calgary’s current strategic plan makes no specific mention of the need for more permanent supportive housing. Braul notes “Our experience with Peter Coyle Place suggests housing, which includes a harm reduction philosophy with various activity programs, as well as access to in-home physicians and nurse practitioners, is more effective than affordable housing alone. Instead of aiming to build 1000s of new affordable homes, it makes better sense to build 100s of units of permanent supportive housing units.”
Jileckova agrees. “Creating more housing is not enough. Housing First (moving people rapidly into housing) works; however, to be successfully housed on a more permanent basis, many residents require not just home but supports to stay housed (e.g., case management, addictions treatment, mental and other health, etc.). Many Calgarians temporarily accommodated during COVID-19 will require supports (in addition to rental units) so they don’t return to homeless shelters.”
One of the biggest obstacles Majdell and her HomeSpace team face is the constant battle with the NIMBY attitude of a few individuals who don’t want affordable housing in their community. She also laments the public’s lack of understanding of the economic benefits of providing affordable, adequate and safe housing, as it means those in need of affordable housing will make less use social and medical services which results in an estimated cost savings of $35,000/year per person.”
The plan to build 16 funky tiny homes in Rosedale along the 16th Ave NW sound barrier wall meet with significant opposition from the neighbours. Today they fit into the community nicely.
Latest Proposal To End Homelessness
In July 2020, the City announced a two-step approach to ending homelessness in Calgary. It would include asking the Federal government for $46 million in capital funding and $13 million in operating funds to buy and operate several existing hotels and apartment buildings that are for current sale, to be converted into homeless housing. This would provide homes for 600 or the estimated 3,000 homeless in Calgary. While this sounds reasonable, don’t forget the controversy that arouse when the Calgary Drop-in Centre proposed to convert an old hotel into affordable housing in the Thorncliffe Greenview Community.
Link: Affordable Housing Controversy Thorncliffe Greenview
Link: Hotel Conversion to Affordable Housing Beltline
As a second step the City would request $500 million from Federal and Provincial governments and partner with various not-for-profit housing agencies to create another 4,800 new homes. Calgary’s Mayor says there are currently 22 new affordable housing projects that are construction ready, but need funding – these would could add another 1,800 new affordable homes.
The former Hotel Elan in the Beltline will be converted into 62 new affordable homes (studios, 1 and 2 bedrooms). It will feature outdoor patio, community kitchen, fitness room and meeting spaces as well as underground parking thanks to a private donor.
Last Word
While the task of addressing Calgary’s affordable housing crisis is complex and costly, Jileckova and most of her colleagues are optimistic. She thinks “those of us who work on housing affordability in Calgary (and beyond) have come together in new and positive ways over the past decade (e.g. RESOLVE Campaign, CHAC). Members of CHAC want to strengthen their collaboration and establish an even stronger common voice to advocate for housing affordability in Calgary and in the province.”
While it is great that Jileckova and here colleagues are optimistic, I am not. The gap between what is needed and the capacity to build it too large today and for the foreseeable future.
As Irvine said earlier, “ the only way to address the affordable housing deficit is for the City, Province and Federal governments to not only make affordable housing their number one priority, but to collaborate with various not-for-profits, corporations and housing developers on a scale that has never been seen before.”
If you like this blog you will like these links:
London Musing: Homeless, Poverty, War, Religion, Migration