It's the kind of waiting list most businesses dream of, but it's all bad news when your product is affordable housing.
Ottawa, with a stock of 22,000 subsidized homes, has an 11,000-family waiting list that can last up to seven years for larger units, according to city government statistics. In Toronto, there are 90,000 subsidized units and a waiting list 70,000 names long.
Catherine Boucher knows the statistics well. She's watched them grow for more than a decade as executive co-ordinator of Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corp. (CCOC), the largest non-government organization involved in affordable housing in Ottawa.
"The reasons are pretty simple. Financial responsibility has been downloaded from the federal government to the provinces and then to the municipalities; this at a time when all new tax incentives are geared toward market-valued house and condominium ownership," Boucher says.
CCOC builds, converts and maintains homes for lower-income people, generally defined as those who make less than $30,000 a year. The original mandate was only in Ottawa's downtown core, but times have changed and the city's poor are spread throughout the entire population of 500,000, excluding the amalgamated counties.
In the past decade, Boucher has overseen a move out of Centretown. "We've fallen on the side of: 'There's always a need out there, and if we don't meet it, who will?' " she says.
Now in its 31st year, the corporation owns and operates 1,314 units in 46 buildings, still mostly in Ottawa's downtown core but also in the city's east, west and south areas. The stock is worth $80 million and a new $3.2-million, 90-unit building will be ready in the spring.
CCOC and the city's 69 other not-for-profit housing societies are the only ones creating rental and owner stock that can accept the 25- to 35-year, subsidized-repayment horizon that affordable living requires.
The municipal Ottawa Community Housing Corp. oversees 16,000 subsidized units. There are an estimated 200,000 households in Ottawa, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.
"Ottawa's the third most expensive (rental) market in the country," Boucher says. "Even people who aren't low income have trouble affording a place to live."
She knows because she's been there. A self-described dropout in 1960s Ottawa, she was working at a women's shelter when she realized decent housing was a big piece of the puzzle for abused women. She joined CCOC in 1978 when it had only three employees and 35 units and her first job was to oversee maintenance. Ten years later, when she moved into management, there were 500 units and the organization was branching into community outreach, such as advocacy and tenants' rights.
Today, Boucher manages a staff of 30 and admits she has trouble understanding CCOC's property-management software. But the work hasn't changed: Keeping the organization afloat financially, creating more new units and making sure the toilets work.
As CCOC grew, the financial aspects became more complex. Today, about 53 per cent of the organization's annual $13.6 million in revenue comes from tenants' rent and 43 per cent comes from various government subsidies. And there's very little wiggle room when about 45 per cent of the budget goes to mortgage payments and 24 per cent to maintenance - operating costs that have to be met each month regardless of income.
Since operating costs are no longer government-subsidized, Boucher says she has to constantly reinvent CCOC's relationship with financial institutions when developing new projects. "For anything new we still have to go to the bank and get a mortgage, and our numbers aren't very attractive," she admits.
CCOC's new 90-unit building on Richmond Road is an example. Despite receiving a City of Ottawa land lease and construction grant, there's still $2.7 million of capital expenditure to find. Much of it will come through low-interest loans from charities and other non-profit organizations. Other revenue streams such as leasing out ground-floor space for retail may work downtown, but not in residential areas.
Subsidized housing always faces a cash crunch, from planning to occupation. And projects are not always welcomed by existing neighbours.
"These are the two big industry challenges: Getting the financing in place to build and creating a good community around it," says Derek Ballantyne, Toronto Community Housing Corp. CEO and a long-time CCOC director. "Some neighbourhoods are becoming more resistant to mixed housing, and it takes a political realist, not an idealogue, (someone) like Catherine to get affordable housing built."
"There's not a study out there that doesn't show non-homogenous neighbourhoods as the healthiest," Boucher says. "The most difficult (hurdle) we face is in the planning stages."
There is some room for financial optimism, according to Ottawa city councillor Diane Holmes, a staunch advocate of affordable housing.
The first federal funds in 20 years and the first provincial cash in 10 are starting to trickle into municipalities in the form of capital-cost subsidies.
"The idea right now is that this new money will lower mortgage costs, which means rents can be more affordable," Holmes says. "It's up to the hands-on organizations like CCOC to build as much as they can with these new funds.”
She adds that Ottawa has committed to facilitating 500-700 new units a year in its new city plan.
Boucher would like to see the funds used, in part, to support affordable home ownership. In the 1990s, CCOC started a new project in the Byward Market that constructed 30 condominium-style apartments. Ten were sold at market price, and 20 were subsidized for lower-income families.
"They sold out very quickly. Regardless of how much they earn, people love to own if they can afford it. The model still needs a bit of tweaking, but we would really like to expand on this. Perhaps federal and provincial money can help," she says.
The timing, at least, is good, with prime land coming available at Lebreton Flats' Phase 2 and two military installations, downtown at Beaver Barracks and along the eastern Ottawa River Parkway at Rockcliffe airforce base.
Boucher admits she often has a problem with the city's definition of what affordable is. In Lebreton Flats' Phase 1, residences start at $750 per month, or $181,000, for a bachelor apartment.
"You tell me if that's affordable," Boucher says, although she is quick to add that the city government now realizes how high a priority subsidized housing is for its voters, who rated it second in a recent poll, and is reducing tax rates for subsidized apartments.
(Mike Levin can be reached at levin@businessedge.ca)
