Social Planning Toronto (SPT) organized and facilitated five community consultations with service providers and housing advocates on the issue of private-sector rental housing in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). These consultations were carried out in partnership as with the University of Toronto’s NCRP to inform its research and policy agenda on private-sector rental housing.
Participants identified some positive aspects of private-sector rental housing in their respective areas, including a diversity of private-sector rental housing types, some responsive landlords and superintendents, an increase in tenant organizing and tenant voice, some buildings in a state of good repair, neighbourhoods with good local amenities, strong community leaders in tenant communities, and tower communities as a site for positive cultural connections for newcomers.
Participants also identified a long list of problems in private-sector rental housing. These included lack of affordability; maintenance problems; cockroach, rodent and bedbug infestations; landlords who break the law and intimidate tenants; residents who are unaware of their rights as tenants and/or fear retribution from landlords; problems with the Landlord-Tenant Board and weak protections for tenants; precarious rental situations; violence and safety issues; discrimination in housing; language barriers; lack of accommodation for people with mental health issues; physical accessibility problems; unmet legal needs of tenants; weak political representation to advocate for tenants; and tenant experiences of stress and despair.
Participants identified possible solutions and improvements, including a few current initiatives under way and recommendations for change. Recommendations involved tenant organizing and advocacy, landlord engagement, program and system change, and structural change initiatives.
This report explores the continuum of inadequate housing, risk of homelessness, and visible homelessness among families in Toronto. Low-income families often move between different points on this continuum, and homelessness among families is more likely to be hidden than visible. Drawing upon a survey of families living in aging rental apartment buildings in Toronto’s low-income neighbourhoods, and on focus groups with parents and service providers, this study examines the relationship between housing conditions and homelessness. The findings show that large numbers of children and parents are living in precarious, unaffordable, poor-quality housing. The report recommends four key interventions that can improve families’ access to safe, stable, affordable, and suitable housing.
Emily Paradis, PhD, is Senior Research Associate, Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto. An activist, researcher, advocate, and front-line service provider with women facing homelessness for 25 years, her scholarly work focuses on homelessness among women and families, human rights dimensions of homelessness and housing, community-based research and action with marginalized groups, and participatory interventions to address socio-spatial inequalities between and within urban neighbourhoods. She is Project Manager of the Neighbourhood Change Research Partnership
Research Paper 231, Neighbourhood Change Research Partnership, University of Toronto, March 2014
Funded by the Government of Canada’s Homelessness Partnering Strategy, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada through the Neighbourhood Change Research Partnership at the University of Toronto’s Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work.
All families in this study are housed. This study sets out to define and measure inadequate housing, hidden homelessness, and the risk of absolute homelessness in a low-income, housed population. This includes families on a continuum of housing vulnerability and homelessness, from inadequate and precarious housing, to hidden homelessness, to visible homelessness and shelter use, to re-housing after a period in a shelter. Families often move back and forth along this continuum.
As part of a research project on neighbourhood change in cities across Canada we have developed a typology of neighbourhoods for eight Canadian Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs): Calgary, Halifax, Hamilton, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, and Winnipeg.
We created this typology using 2006 census data for 3,139 census tracts in the eight CMAs. We focused on 30 variables related to economic status, age, family, and household status, immigrant and ethnic status, migrant status, and housing status.
By analysing the relationships among these variables using component analysis and undertaking a cluster analysis of the component scores we were able to identify 15 clusters of census tracts that characterize distinct urban neighbourhoods. We have organized these 15 clusters into six larger groups: Older Working Class, Urban/Suburban Homeowner, Old City Establishment, Disadvantaged Groups, and Family Ethnoburbs.
Not all clusters appear in all CMAs. Toronto includes all 15 clusters, while Halifax (the smallest city in the study) has only nine. Larger and more socially complex CMAs exhibit the largest number of clusters.
This research bulletin reviews and analyzes the changes that have been made to mortgage lending regulations. Instead of examining their effect on housing values or the Canadian economy more broadly, the objective is to ascertain their impact on borrowers. In particular, this analysis considers whether the new rules are socially warranted, given differential access to credit and the current distribution of household debt among different socio-economic groups, and whether the new rules make mortgage lending in Canada more fair or less fair. In short, it seeks to determine whether the new regulations represent a net social benefit to Canadian society.
This eight page summary of the full report concludes: “There is a need for debate and discussion of the ideas in this paper, as well as broader questions about stimulating rental housing development. For example, should stimulating more private-sector participation in affordable housing development and financing be a government policy objective? Should the funding envelope be modified to provide more money for purchasing existing buildings and rehabilitating them for affordable rental? How should policy recommendations and actions be shaped to increase effectiveness in addressing needs in gentrifying areas?”
The development of multi-unit residential housing is a complex, costly, capital-intensive, and risky business, particularly for the major players: real estate developers, owners of rental buildings, and financers of development projects and long-term mortgages. All expect their financial returns to be commensurate with the risks they assume, and all need to cover their investment of time, money, and expertise.
The purpose of this paper is to help a broader audience unfamiliar with real estate finance to understand the economics of the major for-profit players, or “how they make money.” Better understanding of the for-profit real estate business and the issues faced by for-profit players in rental development should help generate ideas for incentives (or ways to overcome disincentives) to stimulate greater private-sector involvement in creating affordable multi-unit rental housing.
The paper uses simplified financial models to explain and compare the economics of for-profit condo development, for-profit apartment development, and affordable rental development. The models show that a for-profit developer would need to charge luxury rents of more than double an affordable rent level to reach a minimum acceptable profit margin. Charging lower rents means insufficient income to cover interest costs – that is, bankruptcy. This is why it is not economically attractive for the private sector to participate in the creation of multi-unit rental housing, particularly in large urban centres like Toronto.
Department for Communities and Local Government, London, UK: 2011. The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and its predecessor departments have actively promoted the use of such classifications for nearly 30 years, since the development of the Index of Local Conditions (later the Index of Local Deprivation and Index of Multiple Deprivation) in 1981. The department has made active use of these indices in targeting interventions, such as its Neighbourhood Renewal Fund, and in evaluating performance and progress, for example in comparing the performance of New Deal for Communities areas with other areas of similar deprivation. This toolkit is designed to provide an overview of the uses and limitations of the place typologies which underlie neighbourhood performance indicators in the UK. Although there is considerable enthusiasm for place typologies and widespread use, applying these tools in policy is not straightforward. Different kinds of tools, and
different levels of methodological sophistication, will be appropriate in different circumstances.
Urban Studies 46(10) 2103–2122, September 2009. Little attention has been paid to date to the role of a changing neighbourhood as a factor influencing the residential choice process. Processes of neighbourhood change are often beyond residents’ sphere of influence and if a changing neighbourhood
causes residential stress, the only way to improve one’s neighbourhood is to move to a better one. This study aims to get more insight into the effect of neighbourhood change on residential stress by studying residents’ wish to leave their neighbourhood. Using data from The Netherlands, we show that there is no effect of a change in the socioeconomic status of the neighbourhood on moving wishes. A high level
of population turnover and an increase in the proportion of non-Western ethnic minorities in the neighbourhood increase the probability that residents want to leave their neighbourhood. The latter effect disappears when controlled for residents’ subjective opinion about neighbourhood change.
U.S. National Housing Institute, 2008. This publication offers CDCs, local officials, and other stakeholders, including local institutional, business, and community leaders, a new way to look at how they can manage neighborhood change in order to bring about sustainable and equitable revitalization. It is based on a simple idea: The most powerful lever for neighborhood change is change in the demand for housing in the neighborhood. Change in the residential real estate market can lead to a stronger, healthier neighborhood. At the same time, market change can take problematic forms, leading to undesirable outcomes. It can be driven by speculation, triggering little or no improvement in the community’s quality of life, or it can disrupt established communities, displacing long-time low- and moderate-income residents.
Higher house prices without improvement to neighborhood vitality and quality of life is neither
positive nor sustainable, while change that leads to displacement of an area’s lower-income residents is not equitable. This proposition defines the central question for all those struggling with the task of revitalizing urban neighborhoods: how to build both a stronger housing market and a healthier neighborhood while ensuring that the community’s lower-income residents benefit from the neighborhood’s revitalization?
In order to fully grasp the history of urban community development and its implications for urban planning and policy, it is important to first understand the dynamics of neighborhood change. Why do neighborhoods decline, improve, or remain stable over time? Following the taxonomy of Temkin and Rohe (1996), this paper surveys three major schools of thought with regard to theoretical understanding of how and why neighborhoods change – ecological, subcultural, and political economy – reflecting on their implications for neighborhood development policy.
Ann. Review of Sociology, 1983. 9:83-102. This review presents an analysis of current sociology and human ecology dealing with neighborhood change. The review is organized in four major sections. The first deals with the concept of neighborhood. The second discusses the classic models of neighborhood change-invasion-succession and life cycle. The third deals with the current perspectives on neighborhood change: demographic/ecological, sociocultural/organizational, political economy, and social movements. The final section focuses on urban revitalization and gentrification.
