(Today’s Northumberland file photo)
By Cecilia Nasmith/Today’s Northumberland
Northumberland County’s efforts to ensure an optimal stock of affordable housing was the subject of a presentation by Housing Services Manager Rebecca Carman at the October county council meeting.
The stock consists of three categories, Carman said.
Legacy stock includes social housing that the province downloaded to the county in 2001, as well as co-op housing and units acquired through the Northumberland County Housing Corporation, There are 773 of these units – 369 of them from non-profit housing providers, 78 from the co-operative development and 340 from NCHC projects. Of this number, 85% are rent-geared-to-income and 15% are lower-end market rent.
Pre-2019 Affordable Housing refers to other units acquired prior to the date county council approved its Affordable Housing Strategy, which set a target of 900 new affordable housing units by 2029 through such strategies s capital incentives up to $20,000 and rent supplement programming. This contingent currently includes 60 rent-supplement units, 773 community-housing units and 112 built through partnerships with private developers.
New and Planned Housing refers to post-2019 units that count toward that goal of 900 – to date, 83 have been achieved, 168 are in the “affordable” pipeline and 39 are in the “attainable and market-rental” pipeline. This is almost 30% of that goal, Carman noted.
Meanwhile, there are such challenges as a growing rent-supplement program that, because of escalating rents, may not be as effective as it has in the past.
And in their partnerships, Chief Administrative Officer Jennifer Moore noted, they have to be clear on both sides in defining what “affordable” means.
“We have begun to introduce affordable-housing partnerships with key agencies and saving properties being considered and explored for acquisition,” Carman added.
Cobourg Mayor Lucas Cleveland found the report quite encouraging, saying that there are 773 units for a county with a population of 86,000 while Toronto has only 85,000 units for a population of almost three million.
Later in the meeting, county council endorsed the concept of an idea from the Municipality of Brighton – an inter-municipal task force to address housing and homelessness. Much work remains to be done on such components as a terms of reference and reporting expectations. But it was agreed that participating municipalities will supply representation from their council contingents, as opposed to making it a committee of mayors.
