Raise the Hammer

I agree, in order for Hamilton to truly be an 'ambitious' city we are going to need to make it a great place for everyone to live - including people with lower incomes. According to Hamilton Official Plan, we need to create 377 new rental units for low & moderate income households annually, including housing with supports (this is further broken down to 252 units/yr that are at least 20% below average market rent). According to the OP, “Meeting the housing targets for housing affordable for low and moderate income households will require sustainable and predictable funding from senior levels of government.” (https://www.hamilton.ca/sites/default/files/media/browser/2015-01-15/urbanhamiltonofficialplan-volume1-chapterb-communities.pdf pg 6/55). How far are we from these targets right now? And how do we get there?

Creating a 20% affordability mandate for downtown rental developments like Nicholas suggests would certainly move us towards this goal. But how do we do this, without demanding that only the for-profit developers carry the load (which likely is not feasible)? Yesterday at the PED talk Gord Hume talked about municipal funding models like adding 1% to local sales and gas taxes to pay both for municipal infrastructure as well as community needs such as affordable housing. A change like this obviously take time and a groundswell of support from taxpayers & elected officials.

In the meantime, a more grassroots and immediate approach would be for we as citizens to financially support Hamilton’s non-profit housing providers as they strive to develop & maintain affordable housing options across our City. I am thinking of City Housing Hamilton, Good Shepherd, Victoria Park Community Homes, the YWCA, Indwell…and many others.

Recently I have heard of local faith groups coming together to try to figure out how they can co-launch a fundraising campaign to create new affordable housing in our downtown because they recognize that there is so much need. This real city building.