Renters getting priced out of aging highrises
Report finds once-affordable units are ‘quickly disappearing’
Increasingly home to low-income tenants in low-income neighbourhoods, Scarborough’s apartment towers are needed more than ever.
Those aging pre-1985 highrises are frequently overcrowded and needing repair, but more affordable than other options in Toronto, Peel and York, says United Way Greater Toronto’s new report, Vertical Legacy.
The report says that affordability is “quickly disappearing” when, after decades of stagnant incomes, renters can’t afford to pay much more.
Vertical Legacy’s authors say governments should stabilize rents in tower neighbourhoods such as Scarborough’s KingstonGalloway-Orton Park and Scarborough Village with vacancy control, but also give owners more financial help to renew and repair buildings.
“We can do things. Some cost money and some don’t cost money,” says University of Toronto Prof. David Hulchanski.
Subsidies drove Toronto’s postSecond World War apartment tower boom, and decades ago, developers were lent 90 per cent of capital costs, “a great deal,” he said.
When those policies stopped, construction ended. Renter incomes in towers then stagnated as buildings became home to families on tight budgets.
In Toronto, 49 per cent of highrise apartment renters now live on low incomes. The city, with 1,715 “legacy” towers, also saw downward income shifts for whole neighbourhoods containing rental highrises: 67 per cent of Toronto’s tower neighbourhoods in 1980 were considered middle income. Now, just 24 per cent are.
“That is quite astounding,” Hulchanski said.
The report finds racialized people “increasingly segregated” in tower communities. Across Greater Toronto, Black (54.5 per cent), Filipino (53.1) and South Asian households (48.2) are the most likely to live there.
Many are recent immigrants. Vertical Legacy calls for more “social infrastructure” in tower communities and more engagement of people living there, saying “culturally responsive and relevant” services are critical to building a sense of place and belonging.
West Scarborough Neighbourhood Community Centre, a United Way agency in Oakridge, expects a greater need for such services to shape its developing five-year strategic plan.
Tower apartment renters account for 61 per cent of Oakridge households, and WSNCC’s executive director Josh Hood said many newcomers don’t know how to get recreation for their children.
“Reaching the full complement of people in these highrise towers can sometimes be a challenge,” he said.
Tigist Moges, an early childhood educator whose three children attend programs at WSNCC, works with kids from nearby buildings at Teesdale Place and Pharmacy Place whose parents are from the same region as herself, Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Those parents experience “a little bit of a language barrier” and work long hours, said Moges, who tries to celebrate Ethiopian and Eritrean culture in her child-care class.
As a mother, she said, she’s proud to show children her homeland’s traditional dress and coffee ceremony, and to put Amharic words on walls.
“It’s not enough, but we’re trying,” said Moges, who’d like to start an Amharic language class but doesn’t have the resources.
Geordie Dent, executive director of the Federation of Metro Tenants Associations, says the province’s decision to lift vacancy control — which freezes rents as units become vacant — led to “rent gouging.”
“We’re losing families. A lot of people just can’t afford to live here,” he said.
For 10 years, landlords have enjoyed record profits, “a golden age,” as vacancies allowed rents to soar, said Dent, charging many pressure low-paying tenants to leave.
Because they likely face massive rent increases, many tower tenants don’t feel they can move; often, they don’t ask landlords for repairs, living in “a constant state of fear” of losing their housing, Dent said.
Governments, acknowledging a crisis, do little to create affordable housing, while landlords treat repairs as a choice rather than things they’re legally required to do, he added.
Daryl Chong, CEO of the Greater Toronto Apartment Association, representing landlords, said in an email he hadn’t read the report and it would be weeks before he could comment.