30 replies to this topic

[SamCB]

I'll start the list.

Paying $5,600,000 for two motels to house less than 40 homeless people who pay rent somewhere in the range of $375/month.

Timescolonist.com has an article here detailing the problems this is causing for nearby residents and businesses.

I can't believe anyone on council thought this was a good idea. Instead of trying to provide affordable housing by allowing residential development which will increase housing supply and naturally bring prices down, they spend millions on a band-aid solution which infects an entire neighbourhood. Utter incompetence. Your property taxes paid for this!

[aastra]

Fortin is optimistic that, now that Gold's Gym has been cleared to move into the former NOW Furniture building at the corner of Queens and Douglas Street, its presence will help the neighbourhood.

"The more activity you have, the more people you have, the more activity you have on the streets - it all helps," he said.

Read more: http://www.timescolo...l#ixzz1e0Vh03IX

Hmmm. So is he an advocate of residential development downtown now?

[Nparker]

Hmmm. So is he an advocate of residential development downtown now?

He's an "advocate" for whatever he feels he needs to say to get re-elected on Saturday. Assuming that happens (gawd-forbid), then I expect he'll be back to his old self come Sunday morning.

[LJ]

I'll start the list.

Paying $5,600,000 for two motels to house less than 40 homeless people who pay rent somewhere in the range of $375/month.

Timescolonist.com has an article here detailing the problems this is causing for nearby residents and businesses.

I can't believe anyone on council thought this was a good idea. Instead of trying to provide affordable housing by allowing residential development which will increase housing supply and naturally bring prices down, they spend millions on a band-aid solution which infects an entire neighbourhood. Utter incompetence. Your property taxes paid for this!

Yeah, let's amalgamate!!!

[Rob Randall]

I'll start the list.

Paying $5,600,000 for two motels to house less than 40 homeless people who pay rent somewhere in the range of $375/month.

Timescolonist.com has an article here detailing the problems this is causing for nearby residents and businesses.

I can't believe anyone on council thought this was a good idea. Instead of trying to provide affordable housing by allowing residential development which will increase housing supply and naturally bring prices down, they spend millions on a band-aid solution which infects an entire neighbourhood. Utter incompetence. Your property taxes paid for this!

What does supportive housing have to do with market rentals? The goal here was helping the hard to house. Supportive housing doesn't magically appear if you approve a couple of high-end rental buildings downtown.

What would you propose?

[RobinKimpton]

I have written on this before on my Thread.

I wrote on the Thread What was Council Thinking when it purchased 710 and analyzed the cost to the taxpayer and I have written on 710 in terms of a comprehensive development at that location.

Go see these on these on the Robin Kimpton Thread.

[Barrett r Blackwood]

I think Mr. Randall that you have missed the point. Building more rental housing and bringing the price down prevents homlessness in the first place. The other point being that shifting the homless from one part of town to the other should be done with the needed services ( addiction managment etc. ) not just creating a warehouse of the " hard to house"
Besides several persons as of late have been evicted from 710 Queens due to the election and so back on the street they go. I had the chance to interview Doug Chipera ( the person appearing on the front of the TC today ) two weeks ago. He informed me that he was being " groomed and set up as the new poster boy " for 710 Queens. While I was happy and moved by his success to date, one must take into account that he is but one of the many " difficult to house persons " in Victoria. For Mr. Chipera to be used in this manor, to justify $5,600,000 in spending is the biggest stretch ever.

[Rob Randall]

I think Mr. Randall that you have missed the point. Building more rental housing and bringing the price down prevents homlessness in the first place.

A building boom of new rental would satisfy demand and likely slow the increase in rents. But I wouldn't bet on seeing a dramatic drop in rents, even if the market somehow became glutted.

The other point being that shifting the homless from one part of town to the other should be done with the needed services ( addiction managment etc. ) not just creating a warehouse of the " hard to house"

True, both are needed. And we have those addiction support services. And we need more. But we can't sit around waiting for the Province to open up more detox beds or hire more VICOT workers. Detox is more successful when the person has a bed to come home to instead of "friends" in the alley.

I
Besides several persons as of late have been evicted from 710 Queens due to the election and so back on the street they go.

Say what?!

This type of housing is expensive but there is accountability. They are relatively safe, unlike the descriptions I've read in the media of Kimpton's properties.

[SamCB]

What does supportive housing have to do with market rentals? The goal here was helping the hard to house. Supportive housing doesn't magically appear if you approve a couple of high-end rental buildings downtown.

What would you propose?

Ok, my point is half ideological. I don't think civic government should be attempting to provide affordable housing at all. I think their only recourse is to facilitate affordable housing by increasing supply. It's not magic, Rob. You built more suites, the existing suites are worth less. Let the market work its magic. No need to differentiate between rentals and owned suites. It's all housing.

But that's just my opinion. Apparently most Victorians want the city to provide affordable housing. Fair enough.

So then my issue is with the inefficiency with which city hall has tried to achieve this. What would I propose?

I'd propose the civic government leaders don't try to play developer, because they aren't good at it. What they've done is created a ghetto. Thank goodness it's on a small scale, but make no mistake, Victoria got a 21st century 'project'.

This is a problem that major cities identified 40 years ago and resolved 10 years ago. It's simply bad urban geography. And it's bad economic policy.

$5.6M is an enormous cost which provided (an arguable) benefit to a mere 40 people. The negative externalities already far outweigh the benefits (see article previously posted for examples).

Getting back to my personal opinion here, supportive housing must be transitional by nature, otherwise you get (create? reinforce?) free riders. The goal is to get them on their feet, and wean them off the subsidy.

You can do this in two ways, one is to utilize the existing infrastructure of market housing across the city and provide rent subsidies. The other is to buy 2 pieces of prime real estate with hotels on them and convert them into centres-of-dysfunction.

The former option has the advantages of geographic dispersion of the hard-to-house, while the latter concentrates them in a single location. Guess which one reinforces the habits which make them hard to house?

The former option also gets them used to living in a real life market situation, which is the ultimate goal. Under the Fortin administration these people are under the watchful eye of a bureaucratic system which no doubt will have trouble evicting them if they overstay their welcome or break the unbreakable rules (whatever they are).

tl;dr- i don't think the city should be providing affordable housing at all, but the traveller's inn purchases were stupid for a number of reasons whether you agree with me or not.

[Rob Randall]

tl;dr- i don't think the city should be providing affordable housing at all

Fair enough, housing is a Provincial and Federal responsibility. They've already offloaded massive amounts of responsibility onto municipal governments and I'm sure the more the City spends on homelessness the happier Ottawa is. This can't go on.

This is why I was shocked at mayoral candidate Paul Brown's idea to transfer half a million dollars a year out of capital funding and into funding longer hours for the Our Place shelter. I would love to see the shelter open 24-7-365 but Victoria can't afford it.

The goal is to get them on their feet, and wean them off the subsidy.

You can do this in two ways, one is to utilize the existing infrastructure of market housing across the city and provide rent subsidies. The other is to buy 2 pieces of prime real estate with hotels on them and convert them into centres-of-dysfunction.

This is being done. 177 rent subsidies were handed out this year. More is needed.

You built more suites, the existing suites are worth less. Let the market work its magic. No need to differentiate between rentals and owned suites. It's all housing.

I don't know many landlords eager to rent their nice, cozy bachelor suites to shopping-cart-guy and his crack-smoking old lady.

[SamCB]

I don't know many landlords eager to rent their nice, cozy bachelor suites to shopping-cart-guy and his crack-smoking old lady.

Me neither, but that's a symptom of the dearth of supply. The rental market heavily favors landlords.

We don't have one of the lowest rental vacancy rates in Canada because our growth is outpacing construction capability. It's because anti-development administrations like Fortin's are suppressing potential housing, and instead focusing their efforts (and our money) on ineffective, symptomatic interventions.

[Yippy Ki A]

"But Brown said spending about $8 million to buy and renovate two Traveller's Inns to take 36 people off the street is not good fiscal management. Fortin counters that when other governments' contributions are factored in, the city's cost on the Traveller's properties was only $1.2 million, and when the second Traveller's Inn on Gorge Road East reopens, another 68 units could be added."

http://www.timescolo...2763/story.html


I have never liked fortin, personally or as a municipal politician. When I read comments like this, I have to wonder how anyone could vote for him. Where does he think think 'other governments' contributions' come from? He shines with incompetence.

[jklymak]

^ Maybe, but $220k/unit doesn't seem completely outrageous.

[Rob Randall]

"But Brown said spending about $8 million to buy and renovate two Traveller's Inns to take 36 people off the street is not good fiscal management. Fortin counters that when other governments' contributions are factored in, the city's cost on the Traveller's properties was only $1.2 million, and when the second Traveller's Inn on Gorge Road East reopens, another 68 units could be added."

http://www.timescolo...2763/story.html


I have never liked fortin, personally or as a municipal politician. When I read comments like this, I have to wonder how anyone could vote for him. Where does he think think 'other governments' contributions' come from? He shines with incompetence.

So you prefer homeless people sleep on the street, preferably outside your front door? Interesting. Tell me more about your solutions.

For every dollar we pay in taxes the City only gets to work with eight cents. Eight cents for all municipal services including fire and police. Extracting more of our fair share is good.

[Baro]

220k a unit seems a bit high when we're talking about tiny hotel rooms, and that these hotels were apparently bought from a desperate and bankrupt fellow.

[Bob Fugger]

220k a unit seems a bit high when we're talking about tiny hotel rooms, and that these hotels were apparently bought from a desperate and bankrupt fellow.

Yup. We could have bought each and every one of them condos in Langford for what we paid. As for fallicious argument about the federal/provincial contributions, THAT IS STILL MY MONEY YOU'RE USING, DEAN!!

[Yippy Ki A]

So you prefer homeless people sleep on the street, preferably outside your front door? Interesting. Tell me more about your solutions.

No, I don't prefer the homeless sleeping on the streets. That doesn't mean I should support poorly thought out solutions made for the wrong reasons. Peoples livelihoods and lives suffer because of the warehousing approach. Do I have the solution? Not likely but I know that taxpayers, whether property or income tax payers should not be handling the burden of monies wasted on this approach.

[Yippy Ki A]

So you prefer homeless people sleep on the street, preferably outside your front door? Interesting. Tell me more about your solutions.

And what was it about my post that gave you the idea I would prefer the homeless sleep on the street? That I don't like your buddy fortin maybe?
Why not save your cheap shots for the playground.

[Mike K.]

One of those Traveller's Inns remains boarded up, lest we forget. And weren't several TI hotels used by very low income persons well before the City got involved? I think this was a shortsighted opportunity for the Dean Team to look good in the eyes of the electorate but they dropped the ball and now we're paying hundreds of thousands per year maintaining a failed experiment.

Like I've said many times before, Dean enjoys a lot of support from renters and it's the renters who feel the least of the financial blow from City Hall's unmanageable spending.

For homeowners annual tax can increase by 7% like nothing but a landlord cannot increase his tenant's rent over 2.x% annually. If rent could increase together with inflation, municipal costs and taxes, renters would start to understand the sort of pressure property owners face and maybe then, just maybe, policies introduced by the Dean Team would finally come home to roost. On the flipside commercial tenants are exposed these rising costs because unlike residential tenants, they pay "additional rent" that is adjusted every year to take into account increased property taxes and municipal costs. In other words, commercial tenants feel the pain immediately while residential tenants do not. Considering this, is there any surprise why commercial tenants are growing unsatisfied with City Hall (some even leaving the City altogether) while a large proportion of renters continue to back Dean seemingly blinded by ideology while oblivious to the financial implications of it all?

There are a lot of families in the City who have having a difficult time paying their mortgage, covering increased taxes and municipal fees, buying food at what seems like ever increasing prices, paying for gas, etc. We're heading into tough times and the answer from City Hall is to maintain its status quo and preserve its lavish way of doing business while the community around them struggles to make ends meet. If this isn't stopped by the electorate NOW, every one who ever complains about the high cost of housing and the high cost of living in Victoria fully deserves it.

[G-Man]

While I am not in support of the Dean Team the key is that the market does not build supportive housing. This is VERY different from affordable housing. We need both. The city should be allowing developments and using the DCC's to build supportive housing so that people can move from being on the street to paying market rents.