At the January 22, 2020 meeting, the FCA hosted 4 panelists to discuss housing issues. Fran Klodawsky kicked off the event by explaining why advocates are pushing for city hall to declare a housing emergency. Those notes make up the first section of her presentation below.
Housing Providers
1) Multifaith Housing Initiative (MHI) https://www.multifaithhousing.ca/
exists to build affordable housing that helps fix Ottawa’s housing crisis and gets at risk people into secure, safe homes. MHI is a coalition of faith groups, local businesses, civil society, the City of Ottawa and federal/provincial governments all working together to build and house our communities for the future. This new way of working has created more than 400 new homes, with more on the way.
Fran Klodawsky, Board Member, gave some background information including pictures of the various types of buildings where they provide housing. The MHI portion of the presentation begins on page 6. Presentation: https://fca-fac.ca/fca2020-01-22-mhi/
2) Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation https://ccochousing.org/
is a community-based, tenant and member directed, non-profit housing organization whose mission is to create, maintain and promote housing for low and moderate income people.
Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation (CCOC) bought its first building in 1975 with $500 in the bank. Today we own and manage more than 50 properties that provide almost 1600 units of affordable housing to Ottawa residents. We continue to be run by dedicated volunteers and staff who believe in the basic idea that everyone should have control over their housing.
Ray Sullivan provided general facts and figures on the state of rental properties at the January 2020 meeting. Presentation: https://fca-fac.ca/fca2020-01-22-ccoc-housing/
Architects
Anthony Leaning addressed how building affordable housing should recognize impact of climate change on housing stock, maintenance and cost. This includes ideas for the design and build, land use tools to make land available and climate impacts to prepare for to increase durability. Presentation: https://fca-fac.ca/fca2020-01-22-anthony-leaning/
Rosaline Hill focussed on looking and housing affordability with current and developing land use patterns. Her public website has material on this subject. This includes idea to build housing with less parking and more sharing of common amenities. She compared 1950s housing size with todays. Link: https://www.rjhill.ca/affordability
City of Ottawa : Family and social services > Housing
From their website: One of the key components of the City’s 10 Year Housing and Homelessness Plan is the implementation of the Housing First service model. Housing First prioritizes people experiencing homelessness for housing and supports based on how deep their needs are for support services and the length of time they have been homeless. Housing First uses a common assessment tool amongst referring agencies. People with the highest needs are able to access housing and supports more quickly. Providing a person who is homeless with housing and the necessary supports to stay housed leads to a better quality of life and is far less costly than staying at an emergency shelter. (From website on 2020-03-11)
Read more over at: https://ottawa.ca/en/family-and-social-services/housing
Councillor Catherine McKenney is the Council Liaison for Housing and Homelessness. Her councillor page is https://ottawa.ca/en/city-hall/mayor-and-city-councillors/catherine-mckenney