It was a five-hour meeting of city council specifically about finding solutions to the local housing crisis but writing this now a few days later I’m at a loss about whether or not anything was really solved.
Council and staff have a very limited tool kit to get real substantive action, and that part isn’t their fault. If there is fault to be had, it’s around the idea that the crisis was allowed to get this far before any substantive action was taken, but that fault is shouldered by multiple people at all levels of government.
They say success has many fathers while failure is an orphan, and if nothing else there’s now a line up of perspective foster parents willing to help out. I recognize the willingness, and the eagerness, to help, but I think the question remains about whether or not we’re equipped to take care of that orphan. Do we have the resources to raise that orphan the right way?
Let’s leave metaphor aside and talk plainly. There’s a term called “pathological altruism” and it means that someone is acting out of the desire to support the wellbeing of others, but their efforts accidentally result in more harm.
City council has been experimenting with pathological altruism for the last several years with Welcoming Streets, the court support officer, IMPACT, the downtown resource police officers, the affordable housing reserve and funding for Royal City Mission. Much of this was started with what was supposed to be one-time funding and the assumption that others would pick up the baton.
But no one does.
When it comes to social programs in the last few years, we’ve been great at starting things without any real plan about what to do when that initial funding expires. Ultimately, that one-time funding becomes permanent funding because the best we can expect from the federal and provincial governments is a pat on the back, and because our community cares, we end up funding things we are not supposed to fund.
At the meeting, Helen Fishburn of the Canadian Mental Health Association Waterloo Wellington responded to fiscal concerns from council by saying that the old rules of funding don’t apply in the aftermath of the pandemic. The crisis, she said, is so great that we need to break down the barriers of funding.
Meanwhile at Queen’s Park this week, the provincial government spent their time piling on a young Black disabled woman from Hamilton for apparently not having the appropriate baseline sentiment about a war half-a-world away. Crises is housing, healthcare, mental health, addictions, affordability and two out of four teachers’ unions voting in favour of strike all took a back seat, but at least Sarah Jama will think twice before tweeting something next time, I guess.
Back here in Guelph, our CAO Scott Stewart called for a new deal for cities, and how we’re handcuffed trying to solve 21st century problems with 19th century rules. He said that cities either need to be empowered to take the helm of their own density, or else start limiting themselves to just the things they’re supposed to be doing.
That’s probably not what Fishburn had in mind when she talked about tearing down barriers, but sometimes barriers come down not because it’s a self-directed act of destruction prior to rebuilding, but because their structural integrity’s been breached. “Natural erosion” in other words. Are we going to tear down those walls because we’ve built something better, or are they going to fall apart because they can’t take the pressure anymore?
What was proposed at this week’s meeting will surely add additional pressure because it’s highly doubtful that relief is coming from the province, and each new week seems to augment the siege conditions at the federal level with a combination of national, international, and self-generated catastrophes.
I’m not saying don’t advocate, but are we really under the impression that we’re just one more letter away from help?
At the same time, local aid agencies know that they have a captive audience at council. They know that council will feel compelled to act because they recognize the need, but they also know that council is the only government that’s still listening, and being exclusively concerned with Guelph, they’re not competing with a province, or a nation, full of cities all desperately seeking the same help.
And once again, one notable party was missing from the table. For the last year, all efforts to increase the housing supply were directed at the private market, which is not going to help anyone in desperate need, or anyone on the brink of desperate need, the “one paycheque away…” folks.
Like in the case of our upper levels of government, all the municipal council can do is walk up to local developers with their hat in hand and ask nicely that they might donate some land or add a couple of more storeys on a project that might be gifted as affordable housing, whatever that means.
The one appearance by anyone involved in the private real estate market was a representative from the Guelph & District Association of Realtors who delegated at the planning meeting to ask council to vote against the increase to the development charges. If it’s not bad enough that the Ontario government is telling developers that sometimes they don’t have to pay, now the market itself is telling us that they don’t want to pay either.
So who’s going to pay? The short answer is you are, and I’m sure we’re all dedicated to the betterment of our community, but it’s hard not to shake the feeling that we’re the only ones who are, and that we’re very much alone in trying to find the answers.
I wish everyone well in the endeavour, and I hope that the 21 motions approved on Tuesday will lead to real solutions, but if this is a team effort, we’re the only ones who seem to have come to play and you know what they say about the letter ‘I’ when it comes to teams.
