THREE CRISES:

Homelessness, Affordable Housing and Social Housing

David Soknacki’s policy proposals for:

• Attacking and preventing homelessness in Toronto;

• Attacking barriers to investment in affordable rental housing;

• Addressing issues with Toronto’s existing social housing supply, and

• Financing construction of new social housing units.

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SUMMARY (by specific policy commitments)

Homelessness

1. Establish a Mayor’s Homelessness Committee with participation from a broad range of stakeholders. The specific goal: match other cities that have set “zero homelessness” as a long-term policy goal, and map out how to use the long-term operating savings that would come from housing the homeless in safe, supportive “microhousing” to finance a homelessness elimination strategy. 2. Review the criteria for awarding funds under the emergency rent and utility programs with the goal of broadening both as a tool to prevent homelessness.

3. Partner with a registered charity to serve as the loaning agency for a City rent bank, with the City as the operating partner.

4. Continue to support the LGBT youth homelessness initiative recently voted on by Council.

Social Housing

5. Gradually decentralize the Toronto Community Housing Corporation into smaller agencies or trusts to bring management closer to residents and increase service flexibility.

6. Include partnerships with charities and city-formed land trusts in the decentralization effort to leverage donor investment and non-profit management for City-owned social housing.

7. Adopt new service benchmarks and management strategies to reduce the waitlist backlog.

8. Change City policies so that qualified social housing residents - including trained youth co-ops on work placement - are able to perform minor state-of-good-repair maintenance rather than waiting indefinitely for repairs.1

9. Fund work to address the state-of-good-repair backlog through a combination of Section 37 reforms, a Funds-in-Lieu program, policing savings and case-by-case efforts to leverage intergovernmental contributions.

Affordable Housing

10. Support the tax reduction for multi-unit residential buildings past the 2015 expiry date.

11. Lead the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and other groups to include lobbying against tax and investment disincentives against rental investment alongside efforts to lobby Ottawa for federal support for housing.

1 Edited for clarity – August 28, 2014

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12. Allow for location-specific development charges, providing fair and consistent discounts for new home construction in areas with surplus transit, water and sewer capacity, and in Neighborhood Investment Areas.

13. Add facilitating rental housing investments to the mandate of the “Gold Star” Economic Development program.

14. Support innovative zoning proposals that would increase housing availability with minimal impact on target neighborhoods (e.g. laneway housing).

15. Review and reduce the threshold for requiring inclusionary zoning. Should funds-in-lieu be paid, at least some of these funds will go to fund the state-of-good-repair backlog in social housing

16. Require a set-aside of 10% of units for affordable housing for any projects built in areas of very high density, and for projects requiring re-zoning. Allow for payment of funds-in-lieu of these unit in some cases.

17. Lobby Queen’s Park to confirm the City of Toronto’s right to set aside 20% of any Section 37 payments for repair and construction of social housing without any further legislative uncertainty, and then secure Council support for this revenue stream.

18. Reform Section 37 rules to set minimum requirements for transparency and/or public participation, and publish a formula for fees to reduce delays from related negotiations.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Mayors of Calgary and Edmonton were elected in campaigns that practiced “politics in full

sentences.” I’m proud that our campaign team is aiming for politics in full paragraphs.

Toronto’s problems are too complicated for slogans alone, so we’ve released four policy white

papers so far (on transit, transit planning, parks and governance). At least one more - on

transportation is planned before release of my full-length platform.

However, this paper will likely be the most comprehensive – because housing is one of the

most complicated challenges we face in the wake of Rob Ford’s incompetent and indifferent

administration.

On the street, by phone and in many a late-night email, I’ve gathered advice from at least

twenty respected sources. I’d like to thank them, and especially to thank three campaign

volunteers for their work in assembling several superb pages of ideas and background.

Finally, I’d like to extend my thanks to Ve’ahavta, both for their work with Toronto’s homeless,

and for hosting me for a night in June to learn more about the homelessness issue firsthand –

an experience that informed my commitments below.

The ideas below are, as always, open for further improvement and refinement until release of

the fully-costed platform document in the coming days.

David Soknacki,

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TORONTO’S THREE HOUSING CRISES – AND WHAT WE CAN DO TO ADDRESS THEM

THE LIMITS OF SUCCESSs

Toronto is a victim of its own success. The world suffered a disastrous housing market

collapse in the last decade when a global housing bubble collapsed, driving down housing

construction jobs and growth in the process. Yet our housing market remains strong. For too

many Torontonians, the market is simply too strong.

Next to food, shelter is the most basic human need - yet hundreds of thousands of

Torontonians struggle to find and afford modest rental housing in a city where a typical home

or condo apartment can cost half a million dollars or more. The statistics are well-known, and

stark:

• An estimated 5,000+ homeless;

• A waiting list for social housing that actually exceeds the total number of units in

inventory, from which only 5% of those waiting are housed in an average year;

• Approximately $1 billion in backlogged repairs are urgently needed for Toronto’s

community housing stock, with additional deterioration expected to bring that to $3.6

billion in the next decade;

• A tight vacancy rate in a city where rapid, higher-end condo construction is a primary

driver of new rental capacity, currently meeting over 20% of rental market demand.

How do we respond? On one side, some observers want to trust the market to work these

challenges out – but this approach ignores the reality that housing is a highly regulated market.

Selective taxes and regulations make it unattractive to invest in affordable rental housing.

Meanwhile, other community activists – and even leaders on Council – cling to the fantasy that

senior levels of government will step in and bail us out of our housing problems. To them,

promising to lobby for a rescue that never comes is all we need to do in the face of these

challenges.

There isn’t going to be a bailout - and we can’t wait, even if one were likely. Instead, we have

to act.

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CRISIS I: HOMELESSNESS AND HOMELESSNESS PREVENTION

Toronto prides itself on its social consciousness. But in reality, Toronto is falling behind other

cities when it comes to the struggle to address homelessness in our City. The problem is not a

lack of charity. It’s a lack of long-term, evidence-based public policy.

Toronto’s public and social agencies have done groundbreaking work on a new approach to

homelessness. In other cities, it’s known as “Housing First.” Here, it’s best known by the name

of a program using the model, called “Streets to Homes.” The basic principle is that by simply

housing the homeless in a permanent home - even in modest ‘microhousing’ - we can break

the ruthless spiral of decaying health, economic displacement, poor safety and social

disruption experienced by the homeless. In most programs of this model, 70%-90% of

homeless people who are brought into stable ‘supportive housing’ units are still safely in those

homes twelve months later.

Toronto is doing groundbreaking work, but with stronger political leadership, other cities have

done much more to deliver on the promise of this new approach. As part of a larger anti-

poverty strategy, many cities have literally set the goal of ending homelessness outright over a

ten year period. Others target zero homelessness for certain social groups, like veterans, or

families.

To be clear: every city that takes this approach is facing tough challenges. Some aren’t even

close to reaching the goal of “zero homelessness,” although some smaller cities (like Medicine

Hat) are achieving their targets.

Still, setting the goal has had the worthwhile effect of changing their approach, with benefits for

all. For example, a few cities have experienced a net gain in homelessness since setting their

target. But thousands of people who would otherwise be homeless are safely off the streets

entirely, so their situation would be far worse it hadn’t been for the policy change.

SUPPORTIVE HOUSING: FINANCIALLY SMARTER – AND MORE COMPASSIONATE

The case to aim for zero homelessness in Toronto is compelling – especially since a new

strategy could actually be self-financing in the long-term. Simply throwing money at more and

more services for the homeless on Toronto streets might feel good in the short term, a

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pragmatic approach can blend action with evidence-based planning to actually solve this

problem.

It would be easy to set an arbitrary political target to end homelessness by a particular year –

“ten years,” or “2020” or some other arbitrary measure. I won’t make that mistake, since at

least one city (Vancouver) faltered by doing so without proper planning and consultation.

Still, we’ve seen enough progress in other cities that it’s time to set the broad policy goal of

ending homelessness in Toronto, so “streets to homes” is a goal, not simply a program.

Again: even if this goal isn’t achievable, the act of setting the goal will change our focus from

investing in costly, short-term, on street “management” of homelessness to an approach that

is more compassionate and more cost-effective in the long-term.

The next step, once I am elected, will be to bring public servants, community and business

volunteers, and councillors into a formal committee process to answer a single question:

can we use the long-term savings found from this approach to help finance the long-

term investments in micro-housing? I’ll ask community leaders with experience in this area

to co-chair plan development so that it can be as non-partisan as possible. Once we have the

financial and logistical answers we need, we’ll be able to set a realistic target for “zero

homelessness” implementation with a specific date attached – whether it’s ten years away, or

longer.

The Virtuous Resource Cycle of “Zero Homelessness” Strategies

Once that question is answered, we will be able to set measurable targets, and shift City of

Toronto policies accordingly to reach them.

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TARGETED ACTION TO PREVENT AND MINIMIZE HOMELESSNESS

For many decades, public policy practitioners treated homelessness as if it was a simple

matter of “broken people” living on the streets. Yet we’ve learned – and I’ve learned - that

homelessness usually has specific causes which can be attacked with responsible policy

choices, to the benefit of the vulnerable, and to our benefit as a City.

Specifically, I am declaring my support for two particular policy proposals directed at the

causes of homelessness.

First, the City of Toronto has an emergency rent bank to attack marginal homelessness, where

people faced with sudden illnesses or other pressures miss a few bills and face eviction. In

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson’s words, these are cases where “smaller investments that

prevent larger costs to society.” Vancouver’s rent bank is just over a year old, and it has

already helped over 200 tenants escape imminent eviction. Over and above the obvious human

success of this approach, reduction evictions has, in turn, saved the City from long term

service costs it would bear if those families were homeless.

Toronto’s criteria for awarding emergency rent or utility loans under our own existing program

are tight, and require review. Also, since funding partnership limits may constrain the potential

value of the program, in consultation with appropriate stakeholders, I’ll ask Council for

support to partner with a formal charity to serve as the loaning agency for our rent bank,

with the City as an operating partner. Once these steps are complete, we can prevent more

evictions and prevent the social and economic costs of homelessness in the process.

Secondly, a significant cause of youth homelessness is family intolerance for young people

coming out in the LGBT community. With this in mind, in June, Council recently voted to study

the potential of targeting new or existing housing and support services at this community of

homeless young Torontonians. I want to be clear that I support the LGBT anti-homelessness

initiative recently voted on by Council, and would continue to do so as Mayor.

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CRISIS II: SOCIAL HOUSING: LIMITED SUPPLY, MISMANAGMENT AND DISREPAIR

The Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) has outlived its usefulness in its current

organizational form. Recent controversies have shown that as the second largest housing

corporation of its kind on the continent, the TCHC is simply too big to be accountable to the

City or to residents themselves. The management of almost 60,000 units in one agency has

fostered a costly bureaucratic approach in a system where efficiency, transparency and a

sense of social mission is needed instead. Worse, short-sighted political leadership has

allowed many units in the TCHC portfolio to decay, creating an estimated long-term repair

backlog that should reach $3.6 billion in a decade if no further action is taken.

DECENTRALIZATION OF THE TCHC BUREAUCRACY

With this in mind, I support the decentralization of TCHC into several smaller

organizations over the course of the next three terms of Council. The appropriate

devolution model will depend on the units themselves and the needs and wants of the tenants

within them.

In cases where community partnerships, charitable partnerships or new agencies would be the

successors as unit managers, the City of Toronto would retain control of the assets

themselves, while management and support staff from within the legacy structure of the TCHC

would transfer to the new agencies as appropriate. Wherever possible, the new successor

agencies would be structured to maximize opportunities for direct tenant input in governance.

These agencies would be also be subject to far stricter performance measures to give their

boards a better handle on service quality.

THE REPAIR BACKLOG: RISKING EVICTION THROUGH NEGLECT

Financing repairs in TCHC buildings is an issue other mayoral candidates are eager to avoid in

this election – and that includes Mayor Ford, who is quick to be seen visiting TCHC buildings,

but slow to do anything to actually accelerate repairs across the system.

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It’s true that with other repair backlogs to worry about – including roads, water infrastructure

and the TTC – it’s hard to imagine a single source of revenue sufficient to address the problem.

However, serious mayoral candidates are obliged to propose at least some measures to try to

get ahead of TCHC deterioration. The alternative is the eviction of thousands of Torontonians

and the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of valuable social housing assets.

I am proposing to leverage at least three new sources of revenue – diverted Section 37

funds, funds-in-lieu of affordable units, intergovernmental project partnerships – to

attack the housing repair challenge (see below for details).

However, it’s not enough to divert more revenue to the backlog. We must also consider

changes to existing policy to free up more resources, and to get more value and speed for our

repair dollars.

I support changes to city policies to allow tenant (and especially tenant youth) co-ops to

perform minor repairs to attack the backlog. The current priority for City-funded repairs is

for structural repairs. Smaller repair jobs could be done quickly by tenants or trained summer

placements if our policies on assigning low-risk repair work were more flexible. As audits have

repeatedly identified a long list of frustrations with TCHC’s contracting and repair models, I

would also introduce competitive bid models for repairs led by the City – not the TCHC -

to get repairs done more quickly at less cost.

Finally, I’m proposing measures to save over $65m per year from the policing budget.

Concurrent with those reforms, a policing overhaul should also have a direct impact on the

TCHC budget, freeing up cash for repairs. Many observers recommend a shift from the

current model of ‘agency policing’ (where the TCHC has its own police force, and the TTC pays

a tithe to the Police Service for policing). Under a new model, agencies would rely on existing

police units for serious crimes, but support a dedicated public security service for community

housing, public events, transit sites and other agencies instead. My final platform will offer

more specifics on how much these measures can help to fund urgently needed repairs.

Either way, a repair backlog that is already in the hundreds of millions can’t be ignored. Capital

debt and revenue diversion is costly, but leaving repair costs unfunded indefinitely is not the

fiscally responsible alternative.

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THE TCHC WAITING LIST

I’ve repeatedly said in recent months that the best way to deal with the TCHC wait list is to get

more affordable rental units built, whether they’re public or private. Nevertheless, several

advisors insist that the waiting list itself is broken, too. On closer inspection, they’re absolutely

right. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the TCHC takes as long as 90 days to fill empty units,

when less than 30 is the norm in the private market. Often, information on the waitlist is also

found to be obsolete. These are telltale signs that this important policy tool is still operating on

mid-20th Century principles. With technology, innovation and a bit more initiative, we can do

better.

It is difficult to devise an appropriate strategy given the limited public information available

about list management. However, if elected, I will begin by asking Council to urgently

investigate three changes in approach.

First, we have to stop treating the TCHC waiting list as a silo. Changes in staffing and structure

are needed to make it a “dynamic affordable housing list” instead – a list that is as quick to

automatically offer leads on affordable private market rentals and other supports as it is to flag

room in existing TCHC units. Success isn’t getting a needy tenant into TCHC housing; it’s

getting the tenant into appropriate affordable housing, and we need waitlist policies that

measure success accordingly.

Second: the TCHC waiting list is – astoundingly – on a “first come first served” basis, with

exceptions for urgent cases. With better use of technology, it stands to reason that the list can

assign open units based on need and speed; for example, someone who is willing and able to

move into an available unit on Day 20 of availability should have priority over someone who

can’t move into the unit until Day 90, reducing the backlog by a few months in the process.

Finally, the new list should be flexible. For example, a more dynamic list would allow TCHC

tenants to swap similar units with willing partners to allow residents to more easily find space

closer to a job, a service or a family member in another part of the City.

MATCHED FUNDING INITIATIVES

Toronto’s progressive community persists in the belief that senior levels of government will

reinvest heavily in social housing. Although desirable, it is highly unlikely. And even if

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reinvestment was to take place, the effect will not be felt for some time. I believe it’s important

to propose alternative strategies to leverage additional funds with this in mind.

First, the use of charitable partnerships and land trusts in place of the TCHC model will make it

easier to leverage modest donor capital to stretch the City of Toronto’s existing investments –

be they in attacking our repair backlog, or providing new units.

Further, allocation of S. 37 and FIL funding (see below) would provide a pool of capital to

attract federal and provincial program capital for housing. While there is little hope of a new

federal housing program, there have been cases where senior governments have funded

particular housing projects for various reasons (heritage, health, seniors, etc.) through

infrastructure funding programs across the country. Holding a pool of funds from Section 37

and FIL sources aside to leverage these opportunities can help us to increase the level of

intergovernmental commitment to housing, even if this would only be only on a case-by-case

basis, over time.

CRISIS III: AFFORDABLE RENTAL AND MARKET HOUSING

When it comes to the high demand for affordable private rental housing in Toronto, it is

unrealistic to expect that thousands more privately-financed units will bring prices down

significantly overall, or that new market units can replace demand for existing social housing

stock. However, more competition from more private units will offer alternatives, and new units

coming on-stream will have to be priced competitively to sell in the broader market, stabilizing

prices. We need policies that will incent the development of both, and incent the creation of

affordable units within the regulated marketplace.

I am proposing five measures to address this.

1. I led the way in City Council as budget chief in 2005 to cut unfair Toronto property tax rates

that discriminated against rental tenants. In January 2014, I committed to continue to rate

cuts past the 2015 expiry date until Toronto’s multi-residential property tax rate is

competitive with the upper band of rates in other GTA cities.

2. I am committed to lead the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) and other

municipal groups to lobby Ottawa to remove federal tax disincentives that unfairly

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penalize rental investment, alongside existing efforts to promote federal support for

housing. This is a position I’ve already made clear in my Board of Trade speech of January

27th,. Eliminating barriers to private investment in new rental units is an important policy tool.

3. I am open to discount development charges in Neighbourhood Investment Areas,

where there is infrastructure capacity.

4. Red tape is also a barrier to rental housing construction. Rather than create a new agency to

attack this, I will ask Council to add rental housing investments to the mandate of the

“Gold Star” Economic Development program, with additional funding to accommodate the

increased workload. Affordable housing investment is an economic (and not simply social)

priority, and this change will help get new rental units built more quickly by treating them with

the same urgency that we would treat a proposal to develop a new factory or a new technology

office.

5. I will also be an advocate to build community support for laneway housing allowances

and other innovative zoning measures to increase rental availability in appropriate

neighborhoods.

INCLUSIONARY ZONING AND FUNDING-IN-LIEU (FIL)

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“Inclusionary zoning” is the process of requiring that new developments set aside a certain

percentage of new units or new space for affordable rental housing. Through authority granted

by provincial legislation, Toronto already has an inclusionary zoning model in place in its

Official Plan. In any residential development of five hectares or more, 20% of units must be set

aside for affordable rental housing. I have no position on what the final threshold should be, but

I support a review of the five hectare threshold to reduce it.

I will also propose implementation of an ‘exchange-based’ inclusionary zoning policy. Under

this formula, City Planning staff will identify neighborhood investment zones, and

neighborhoods that are already experiencing peak infrastructure capacity. An inclusionary

zoning requirement that 10% of the development be set aside for affordable housing

would be triggered for any new residential development in these zones, and for any new

development requiring a rezoning. Note: “Affordable units” can include units that would

eventually be owned by the tenant, through housing models used by Habitat for Humanity, for

example.

Seeding the market with affordable housing units is a socially desirable goal; it reduces social

exclusion for lower-income families, and it reduces the political tension that comes from

concentrating social housing in resistant neighborhoods. However, many developers struggle

with the mix of business models needed to manage rental housing in condo towers meant for

resale.

While rules would have to be carefully designed, Toronto needs cash for new housing and

housing repair as much as it needs new affordable rental units. So, any expansion of

inclusionary zoning should allow for a predictable, formula-based payment of funds-in-

lieu of units to directly finance social housing repairs or finance unit construction elsewhere

in certain cases.

USE OF 20% OF FUNDS FROM SECTION 37 FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Under provincial legislation, the City of Toronto already seeks so-called ‘density bonuses’ from

developers where new developments alter the density of a neighborhood in a manner that

impacts public services. This is over and above development fees charged for specific

infrastructure services, like sewer access. These “Section 37 fees” are usually negotiated, and

the sums granted are highly unpredictable (and not very transparent) as a result.

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One recent study found that only 6% of Section 37 fees have been used for affordable housing

to date. This number may have been limited by Ontario Municipal Board rulings requiring that

Section 37 funds invest only in infrastructure with an “appropriate geographic relationship” with

the development paying the fee. While City Hall is now operating as if this limit is not a barrier,

policies are by no means consistent, and any use of funds for affordable housing remains

optional in the negotiation process.

I will lobby Queen’s Park to formally allow the City of Toronto to set aside 20% of any

Section 37 fee settlement to finance new housing or the repair of existing social housing,

and I will ask Council to take any necessary steps to support this threshold across the City. I

also will insist that Council reform Section 37 rules to set basic minimum standards for

transparency and/or public participation, and to at least adhere to a broad formula for fees

to reduce delays from related negotiations.