Invest now to save later

As recently as the 1990s, the federal government did a smart thing. It financed the cost of much-needed geared-to-income housing for lower-income Canadians across the country.

But, wrongly, it gradually downloaded that responsibility to the provinces, which, for the most part, then passed it along to cities. That, in turn, has created an affordable housing crisis as municipalities, with their limited resources, struggled to keep up with repairs on the housing stock they currently own. Building new units for hundreds of thousands of people on waiting lists across the country is a pipe dream.

Now a “summit” on housing organized by Toronto Mayor John Tory for Friday promises to shine a much-needed spotlight on a national shame that the provincial and federal governments will find tough to ignore.

The summit will bring together in Toronto municipal leaders from across the country, including the mayors of Vancouver and Edmonton. They are all in agreement that the federal government should dedicate most of its promised $20 billion in “social infrastructure” money over 10 years to affordable housing.

While that would mean abandoning plans to spend some of that money on other priorities, such as child care and recreational facilities, it would go a long way to addressing a housing crisis that leaves many thousands of people struggling to find a decent, affordable place to live. It’s a bold plan with a lot of potential benefits. First, repairing run-down affordable housing stocks will have the kind of economic spinoff Ottawa is looking for from its infrastructure spending.

In fact, a 2015 study from the Canadian Centre for Economic Analysis argued that repairing Toronto’s dilapidated public housing stock, alone, would create thousands of jobs, spur private investment and generate billions in extra dollars in federal and provincial taxes.

Second, as Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson rightly points out, investing in geared-to-income housing would save the provinces billions of dollars they are now spending on health care and justice-system costs that are the result of homelessness and housing insecurity. Right now, the situation across the country is dire. Some of the 110,000 tenants in Toronto Community Housing Corp.’s 2,100 buildings, for example, are living in buildings that are literally crumbling around them.

Indeed, in the past few years, the corporation has had to board up 568 units because they are uninhabitable. It estimates it will have to board up 4,000 units by 2018 — putting16,000 people out of their homes — if the federal and provincial governments don’t pony up $864 million each for repairs over the next 10 years for the agency’s $2.6 billion repair backlog.

When you consider that 94 per cent of the people living in Toronto community housing are living beneath the poverty line, it’s hard to imagine where they will go.

And they’re not alone. There are currently 172,087 people languishing on the corporation’s waiting list for affordable housing, some of whom are living in shelters or on the street.

That’s why the summit’s second goal is also so important. Municipal leaders will be asking the provincial and federal governments to contribute surplus land and provide incentives for builders to create new affordable housing.

The mayors should be knocking on an open door when they approach the federal government, at least. The Liberals campaigned on a promise to “renew federal leadership” in affordable housing and to set aside “significant” new money to make that happen.

It’s time for cities to hold the Trudeau government to that promise. Making people’s lives better by ensuring they have decent shelter is reason enough for Ottawa and the provinces to step up their investment in public housing. The economic benefits would be the icing on the cake.

Mayor’s summit on housing promises to shine light on a national shame