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1. It’s been a long time since affordable housing dominated a municipal election. But that is exactly what happened when mayoral challenger Jennifer Keesmaat took on John Tory for Toronto’s top job last October. #TOpoli #HousingCrisis
2. She ambitiously promised to create 100,000 new affordable rental units in 10 years, while the incumbent pledged to create a more modest but still impressive 40,000 new affordable rental units in 12 years.
3. The Mayor’s signature Open Door program launched in 2015 has never met the council-approved target of building 1,000 new affordable rental units per year. If Housing Now’s future success is predicated on the results of the Open Door program..
4. ..then the 181,000 Toronto residents on the Access to Housing Centralized Waiting List will be in for another decades-long wait, since that is how long it takes for a family to gain access to a two-bedroom apartment now.
5. As presented at last week’s Executive Committee, the Housing Now initiative is a scaled-up version of the underperforming Open Door policy. The first traunch offers 11 city-owned sites to private developers.
6. The non-profit and co-op housing sector is “encouraged” to get involved in the market offering process or procurement, but their participation is not actually required.
7. These private developers will be invited to build 10,000 new residential homes on the 11 sites, of which one-third will be ownership housing and another one-third will be rental housing, with rents set at whatever the market will bear.
8. Only one-third of the units will be set aside for “affordable” rental housing, where rents don't exceed 80% of the annual CMHC Average Monthly Rent (AMR). From that one-third, only 10% (apprx 370) of those units will be geared toward deeper affordability or at 40% of the AMR.
9. In a nutshell, Toronto’s Housing Now plan aims to build 10,000 new units on public lands and only 1/30 or 3.3% will be deeply affordable housing. 
10. All these numbers boil down to the fact, the Housing Now plan will not meet the needs of Toronto’s housing crisis. City Council should not proceed with this plan without amendments to increase the actual quantum of truly and deeply affordable housing.
11. The city staff will say it can’t be done. Even the Mayor will deter any sober second thought by suggesting any altering of the report will somehow slow down the provision of affordable housing — that’s not even funded or approved yet.
12. Will the political leadership at Toronto City Council follow in the steps of Vancouver, where they're facing a similar housing crisis and also unlocking their city-owned lands to build new homes.
13. The Vancouver Affordable Housing Agency (VAHA) was created to develop “housing types that are most in need, but are not delivered by the private market.” Through VAHA’s efforts, Vancouver is well underway to meeting its target of 2500 new affordable homes by 2021.
14. They currently have 2,288 units under development, with an additional 606 temporary modular homes for homeless individuals completed or under construction. All units will be affordable rental homes operated by non-profit organizations.
15. In 2018, VAHA transferred 7 city-owned sites to a community land trust. This land trust will design, build, finance + operate 1000 homes on these sites. The land trust is also working on 5 other city-owned sites to create an additional 500 homes. All affordable, all rentals.
16. So why are two leading cities in Canada taking such different approaches to their use of public lands? In a nutshell, I believe that Vancouver politicians understand that for-profit developers will be lousy non-profit housing providers.
17. If they weren’t, then our Open Door policy would have already produced the affordable housing results we needed. Goodness knows that before the fed govt backed out of building affordable housing in 1993, they directed affordable housing only to non-profit housing operators.
18. To fix Toronto’s housing crisis, we need to get back to the basics. Governments provide their surplus land at a price that maximizes affordability. Developers and their consultants design and construct the housing.
19. Costs are capped by govt and developer profit through the construction and consultation fees. Non-profit+co-op organizations bring their access to Fed and Ministry of Health subsidies, their expertise in operating affordable housing, and commitment to long-term affordability.
20. Everyone should do what they do best, and Toronto gets the greatest public benefit. Otherwise, Toronto’s Mayor will be left with no other option but to declare Toronto’s housing crisis for what it is, a state of emergency.
