Columnists
Anything but housing
Whenever I sit down to write a column, I’m never really sure where it’s going to go. Never. Lots of ideas are left “on the cutting room floor”, or just erased. This week I thought for sure I was going to say something about The Times’s edition published last week. Wall-to-wall opinions on the housing project that was proposed for the Talbot Street and Millennium Trail Area filled The Times’ pages. Apparently, this was a surprise to a lot of readers. So much so, several people sent me messages asking what I thought of it. And, for about a day, maybe two days, I figured I’d wade into the mire and have my say about Talbot on The Trail. And then?
Well, and then I thought I didn’t really know as much as I should know about planning and development and what the H E double paned windows the project was all about. I don’t know, even now. I know there is, now, and has been for a long time, a need for affordable housing in this community. Several County councillors questioned the affordability of the proposed “affordable homes” that the project was to produce. I understand some local homeowners were concerned about the density of the build. One or two people mentioned how this housing project didn’t fit the current municipal plan with regard to new builds and developments. Some people were concerned about the possible ecological impact of building in that particular area because that’s never happened in this community before. Hmmm. I don’t know much, but I do know is there are families in this community who are under-housed. I do know there are families who are under-employed. I know there are adults in this community who work full-time hours and can’t afford the basics. It’s a very complicated problem, but I know by shelving this proposal, a disservice has been done to those people who desperately need decent, affordable housing. Personally, I was fairly certain the whole project was a “go ahead”. But it is a complicated issue, and it isn’t going to go away just because this project isn’t going to happen. Our community will still be affordable-housing-poor when all of the paperwork is put into a big ole banker’s box and sent to the Archives. So, this column won’t be about Talbot on the Trail.
When LOML and I arrived in the County in 1972, we were faced with our own housing crisis. We’d only been married for three years and had lived those three years in a large, airy apartment in Toronto. We had looked at houses being built in “Willowdale”. Willowdale was an up-and-coming community, at the time, just outside of Metro. The house we could see ourselves living in was on the market for about twenty thousand dollars and the builder wanted an outrageous one thousand dollars as a down-payment. The down-payment stopped us in our tracks. There wasn’t any way we’d ever conjure up so much money, pay tuition and put gas in the car. We weren’t going to ask our family for a handout. And then the move to the County happened, smack dab in the middle of our dreams of suburban life. What did we know about smalltown living? Nothing. We had hoped the rent in an apartment building, like the one we lived in, would be lower. Not only was the rent a surprise, but apartment buildings barely existed in the County, then. Rent in Toronto set us back $135 per month, which included utilities and a parking garage. After spending a month looking for a decent rental unit, we found a place about five miles outside of Picton. The rent there was $150 per month, utilities not included. Parking wasn’t an issue—but water was, since three families were dipping into one well. Yikes. The first house we purchased, in the County, was a huge fixer-upper project. Affectionately, we referred to our home as “the money pit”. Then, as now, the housing inventory for decent affordable housing in the County was petite. We borrowed every single cent we needed to get the money pit and spent the next 10 years replacing just about everything in it, on it and around it. Our total income, at that time, was about $12,000 a year before taxes. Our house cost us a whooping $26,000. The mortgage interest was 12 per cent and within months it skyrocketed to over 20 per cent. We certainly weren’t rolling in it. We were far worse off in the County than we had been in Toronto. The day we finished the renovations and the restorations, we put “the pit” on the market and moved to our present location. My point is, in the County, decent affordable housing, was then and still is, an BIG issue. LOML and I have been here almost 50 years and the community still doesn’t get it. The lesson is dished up every single day, but “we”, as a community, have learned absolutely nothing. Some of our most vulnerable residents are still under-housed. Many who have the wherewithal to own or rent decent digs see this housing problem from a very different, and skewed, perspective.
We are headed toward “gentrifying” the County’s essence right out of existence.
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