The City of Kitchener is developing an Affordable Housing Strategy. A Housing Needs Assessment was submitted as part of Phase 2 of the Affordable Housing Strategy. A summary, including the 13 Key Findings, can be found in Staff Report DSD-20-006 (Affordable Housing Strategy Phase 2: Housing Needs Assessment).
Beyond the Needs Assessment and Key Findings, many other questions have been raised by the Advisory Committee, including:
-Should social service agencies be distributed throughout the city?
-Need we be concerned with the concentration of land ownership?
-Are high-rise condominiums with small units an appropriate solution to issues of affordability?
-Who should manage the housing of the most marginalized members of society? Is there a role for for-profit corporations?
-Can the full range of affordable housing issues be addressed by a single strategy? In particular, will a price adjustment offer meaningful change to homeless people?
Our input is requested and needed in formulating policy. When you are ready – before the May 3, 2020 deadline – please complete Engage Kitchener’s survey on affordable housing.
Here are resources to better understand some of the issues:
PUSH, a film that “follows Leilani Farha, the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, as she’s travelling the globe, trying to understand who’s being pushed out of the city and why.”
Inclusionary Zoning: Best Practice. Inclusionary zoning is a planning tool which requires new residential developments to include a predetermined amount of affordable housing.
Three articles on the causes of real estate inflation and suggested solutions:
https://www.moneysense.ca/spend/real-estate/8-factors-that-really-mess-up-vancouvers-real-estate-prices/ (April 2016)
https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2019/08/01/Gov-Created-Housing-Crisis-Now-Fix/ (August 2019)
https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-think-b-c-has-a-lot-of-housing-regulations-you-aint-seen-nothing/ (February 2020)
Please feel free to list additional resources in the comments section, below.
