When Hamilton’s housing crisis has a face
I last wrote about shovelling snow, a trivial essay about aches and pains, tongue in cheek, true, but at its essence it was about neighbours and communities. This, too, is about my neighbours but it’s the dark underbelly side of it. There are neighbours out there with much larger problems than snow, things like a roof over their heads.
Our neighbours are being evicted. Their living conditions could definitely be better, but they take it with a grain of salt and they pay their rent. They are being evicted, in part (a big part) depending who you talk to, so the landlord can get more money. And yet … is it a bad thing if the market can support it? Who is responsible for social justice? For financial inequities?
To me, it puts a real face to the story; actually it puts five faces to the story. I’ve read stories but this time it’s real, real to me. Real to me because of the five faces of my neighbours.
It’s in the paper, on the radio and newsfeeds of all sorts every day. The cost of housing in Hamilton, the cost of rents in Hamilton, the cost of living in Hamilton. The problem of the gap between the “haves” and the “have nots,” the “haves” and the five faces.
The discussions have been going on for a decade now, although back then it was called gentrification. Is that different from today’s world or not? It feels different. I still fear the Art Crawl is dying a slow death but that’s the commercial side of things, economics that the five faces care nothing about.
On the flip side, we know a lovely young couple who own three houses and are working on their fourth. Does that make them bad people or smart investors? In their early 30s, they are good kids and likely good landlords but I’m in a quandary because they are definitely a part of the “haves,” not like the five faces.
We, ourselves, wanted to downsize, to live close to the core, get rid of a car and walk everywhere. We bought downtown a decade ago, moving into a school converted into condos. Seven years later and three years ago we sold and moved into a place with a backyard in the north end. We capitalized on a hot market. Does that make us bad? Three short years ago the market was hot, but it was just the cusp of the red-hot market that we now find ourselves in.
The problem with my neighbours’ situation is I can now put a face to the statistics and all the stories. I see them daily, I talk to them and I’m part of their lives as they are part of mine. They are real people. Where will they go? Affordable housing is becoming harder and harder to find. And for the same rent the conditions are getting poorer and poorer. I’m not stating anything new, but that’s not the story, it’s about the five faces, it’s about their stories.
Housing — put a face to the story and suddenly it changes. We’ve seen pictures in the paper, we read their stories or perhaps we haven’t because there’s so much bad news who needs more? A face to the story. In this case, there’s five faces to the story and I’m at a loss as to what to say. When will their story become real to you?