Building Affordable Housing
Funding Solutions Beyond Emergency Relief of Poverty
Creating a Hand-Up
Without housing for the people who work in our communities, we create imbalance. Community development is not just about buildings; it’s about the people who become the human energy that drives our community forward. Diversity within neighbourhoods is the key to their continued growth and vitality. When a segment of the population is forced to live elsewhere, the community ultimately suffers.
When businesses can’t find the employees they need to expand, community resources disappear and the neighbourhood that looked so desirable isn’t anymore. The ability of your neighbourhood to provide safe, decent and affordable housing is critical to its success. It is key to providing services your family relies on to enjoy the quality of life you expect in your neigbourhood.
The need for housing close to job centres becomes even more important where commuter gridlock affects the quality of life for everyone. We are either lacking the appropriate Inclusionary Zoning policies in London or the ones we have lack any teeth.
When hard-working Londoners can’t afford decent housing, we all risk losing essential services, community vitality and economic energy.
We are currently searching for property to build housing that will provide supports for families to build a future. Our vision includes space for a cooperative day-care, community gathering, gardens, and commercial space for cooperative businesses to provide employment opportunities for the residents and neighbourhood where we build.
We invite you to become part of the solution, share your ideas, and champion change. Please support our housing investment fund and sign up for our Speakers Gallery below.
LIFE*SPIN is committed to helping address the critical need for affordable housing in our community.
We have now launched our Housing Investment Fund that will enable us to purchase land and begin the design process. Please consider a donation towards this vision of building the affordable housing we need in our community.
Building Affordable Housing for Families
Our Community Economic Development Initiative
LIFE*SPIN is working with low income people to create real solutions to poverty – simple basic things that we all need to feel stable, so we can be involved in the community, go to work, follow our dreams, and raise our families
People come to LIFE*SPIN for assistance in resolving a specific crisis, one that will quickly lead to more if it is not resolved. For example, one late Family Support Payment can leave a sole-support mother standing in line at a food bank, facing an eviction, without car insurance to get to work, without heat or water, without a telephone, without means to get her child to daycare; without hope and a sense of dignity. Part of what keeps LIFE*SPIN unique and innovative is the foundation of personal experience, peer support and a profound sense of caring for each individual who is courageous enough to reach out when they need a hand up.
The search for safe, affordable and suitable housing in London is very difficult for low-income earners, those on financial assistance programs, and homeless individuals. This is mainly due to the lack of affordable housing, rising rents and decreasing real incomes. Poverty rates for groups such as one-parent families, Aboriginal people, recent immigrants, and persons with disabilities remain unacceptably high. One of the most disturbing trends is the dramatic increase in single and two-parent families which are being forced into emergency shelter. There are literally thousands of families on the waiting list for affordable housing units, and the London Housing Registry has closed because there are no affordable units to list. The Province has mandated Affordable Housing for new developments, however our municipal council has still not implemented minimum requirements.
Most efforts are targeted for individuals and couples who can afford 95% of the market rents. This leaves people on fixed incomes and families with children living in crowded or substandard housing. Housing is more than four walls and a roof, it is a home. It is part of a neighbourhood, a community, it provides opportunities for positive, social interaction and safety. Not only that, but the location of housing affects access to quality jobs, community services, and schools. Homes are where people spend the majority of their time and where family life is nurtured, so it should a be safe, comfortable, and supportive environment. For most households, housing costs are the largest expenditure and should not be so high as to prevent other basic needs – food, clothing, dental, transportation, etc.
Housing Issues for Families in London
LIFE*SPIN purchased and began restoring a building to provide affordable housing in 2000. Unbelievably, LIFE*SPIN continues to operate with no core funding. Through donations from the community, income from our solar panels, small project grants, and great leadership from our Board and operations, LIFE*SPIN has been able to offer 10 units of affordable housing to residents in need of safe, permanent affordable housing. Through the Community Housing Initiative, LIFE*SPIN has also been able to give back to the community through the donation of space to house Old East Common, the community resource space, our “Living Room”, and the Free Store, where people in need can access donated clothing and household articles free of charge.
LIFE*SPIN has built relationships with excellent tradespeople in making sure our units continue to be updated and safe. We acknowledge the tremendous support we have had from BJ Plumbing, Master Services, Habitat for Humanity, Home Depot (East), Provincial Glass, Provincial Locksmith, Pathways Buildworks Program, and thousands of hours of volunteer time from our friends, family, neighbours and tenants.
LIFE*SPIN recognizes there is a serious lack of affordable housing in our community and feel we have created a sustainable foundation to create more housing for families who are struggling in our community.
When people have a safe, affordable place to live, they have a place to thrive.
Unbelievably, with no core funding, LIFE*SPIN has been able set up 10 units of Affordable Housing, but this is not enough. By adding your name to the Speakers Gallery you can get us one step closer to achieving our goal…
What is a Speakers Gallery?
A Speakers Gallery is where you can voice your opinion on the topic at hand: the lack of affordable housing in London due to the inefficiencies of laws and regulations. Once your name is added, we may call on you to show support in the gallery during a hearing with the city council. You will not be required to speak, however you may have the option to do so. The purpose of the Speakers Gallery is to have a force of voices or have bodies present at important, determinant events in order for us to show that we have support for our initiative. As well as show that it is an important issue within the community that not only needs to be changed, but that the change will be accepted by community members.
5 Surprising Facts About Affordable Housing
1. Pay-cheque to pay-cheque isn’t enough
Parents working at $15/hr and seniors living solely off their Canadian Pension Plans can’t afford apartments in countless areas.
2. It doesn’t have to look like “affordable housing”
Affordable housing has a new face. Working with community leaders, architects, environmentalists, and landscape designers allows affordable housing to blend in with existing communities. LIFE*SPIN has an award winning housing initiative that subsidizes the rents, not the taxpayers
3. Without affordable housing the kids today sacrifice their future
As the cost of housing goes up, working and sole-support parent families live on the edge and are forced to move frequently. Their children lose the stability that would otherwise allow them to thrive in social and educational settings. Grow it.
4. Mixed income housing doesn’t have a negative effect on other property values
In many cases, property values for both houses and condos have gone up as affordable housing is built in the same area.
5. We aren't the only ones who care.
LIFE*SPIN has asked people all over London how they feel about building better affordable housing and hundreds of people are choosing to stand with us. We need your help on our mission to make the community stronger for everyone.
What Do We Need Our City Leaders To Do?
Inclusionary Zoning
Inclusionary Zoning is a fundamental piece of a smart growth strategy. It encourages balanced housing choices at a range of income levels and provides housing opportunities in growth areas of the city that would have previously only offered housing affordable to only the highest earners. Inclusionary Zoning is a highly technical policy: one that requires changing land-use or zoning laws to ensure the production of affordable housing. Policies must be included that ensure the Inclusionary Zoning units remain affordable over the long-term. This means durable controls over the units’ affordability, occupancy, and eligibility must be imposed, monitored, and enforced, either by the municipality or a non-profit partner.
One of the most successful models allows non-profits to own the land and sell the homes on their property, using a restricted deed, but retaining ownership of the land underneath. The non-profit and the purchaser share equity through a formula that allows for some equity accumulation for the family, but limits the resale price to preserve permanent affordability. Other mechanisms to ensure long-term affordability also include limited equity co-ops and community land-trusts. The City of London already has the mandate to build affordable housing; let’s make sure it becomes a priority.
How can we accomplish this?
London needs a task force to consider adopting a voluntary, incentive-based, Inclusionary Zoning Policy and a mechanism for moving it to mandatory Inclusionary Zoning. The Inclusionary Zoning must include targeting incomes below 50% of the medium income, with at least 50% of the units below 80% of the median income and 50% of the units at 50% of the median income, in perpetuity.
The city could also facilitate a mechanism for local not-for-profits to purchase up to 25% of the inclusionary units for renting to lower income tenants, effectively stopping the current trend in London that only requires short-term agreements that are marginally under market rents. Under the current practice, even this smidgeon of affordability is lost when the limited terms expire. This practice preventing the building of affordable housing for our community.
Only by anticipating change, and building strategies to hold on to affordable housing, can we create conditions in which an economically diverse population is a sustainable reality for a neighbourhood, rather than a transitional state between and impoverished one and an affluent one. Vacant properties can be both the problem and the solution.
What Can the Community Do?
Vacant Properties and Gentrification
While gentrification is often equated with neighbourhood improvement, in reality, gentrification is a process of class transformation: it is the re-making of working class space to serve middle and upper income earners. When an established working class residential area becomes attractive to developers, the risk of displacement can become quite serious.
It starts with buying up properties and leaving them vacant and in disrepair, driving property values down, allowing them to buy more property. Theses properties impair the health of the residents, they encourage unsavoury activity, raise the risk of fires, reduce property values, and make struggling neighbourhoods less appealing to prospective home buyers and new businesses. Of all the physical factors blighting the lives of our core residents, abandoned properties may be the single most destructive, because they affect so many other conditions, making other challenging issues much worse. What is left at the end of the process, is that those struggling to make it on lower income remain in their neighbourhoods only by ‘doubling-up’, living in substandard housing, and paying a higher percentage of their meagre incomes for housing.
London needs a strategy that prioritizes vacant properties: both vacant lots and abandoned or substandard housing. The heart of such a strategy calls for getting control of abandoned and derelict buildings from irresponsible landowners.
The Community Needs to Regain Control
This is an effective means of restoring our faith in Council and turning around the decline in property values they are creating by lack of action. An abandoned property strategy can work far better that new affordable housing construction, because it reduces costs and maintains the diversity of low-income and working poor families as the economic prosperity of implementing this strategy will also threaten housing affordability as the neighbourhood is revitalized.
In order for this strategy to work, tax liens for not maintaining by-law standards should be implemented immediately on all vacant lots, derelict housing, and abandoned buildings. This should cause the landlords to sell the properties and get them back on the tax roll. The community should then move aggressively to acquire the abandoned properties, using whatever financial resources, legal, or negotiating tools that are available.
If the community sets out to gain control of the vacant houses in our neighbourhoods, rehabilitate them to a high standard, sell some and rent others, we can improve the community. Most houses could be sold at market rates or with shared equity for lower income earners, while homes that can be made multi-residential can be maintained as rental units at 30%-60% of median income affordability for our seniors and others who must rely on fixed incomes that are abysmally low. This would implement the goal of creating economically and socially diverse neighbourhoods.
Take the biggest eyesore on the block, the one no one even wants to walk past, and transform it into a home that sends a positive message about developing affordable housing in neighbourhoods.
