Who are the people in your neighbourhood?

Aren’t we fortunate!? This is more an exclamation than a question. I promised myself I’d get to the Milford Fair with LOML and that’s exactly what we did on Saturday. The Milford Fair did not disappoint. We chatted with lots of old friends. We checked out the vendors’ “market”. We ate lunch under the shelter while a jazz group played. It was all of the fun without all of the baloney. And, seriously, who needs rides for the littles when there was a cardboard box village to play in, a playground to climb and swing on, a place to get your face painted, a table where the kids could paint a wee pumpkin. There were bins of LEGO just in case a kid needed to create something. A spot to use a hammer to pound in some nails to create a little woodworking project! The Shed was full of creative crafts, produce, baking, hobby projects. The food services were mostly local and staffed by people we all know from down the road, from volunteering or when picking up the mail. Small communities, like ours, have a way with celebratory gatherings. When LOML and I first came to the County, I was most definitely unsure of all of the neighbourliness. I had lived in a smallish community when I was a kid, but it rapidly got swallowed up by the beast that became Metropolitan Toronto. By the time LOML and I were married, the hometown feeling our old neighbourhood had become a distant memory. We didn’t know who owned the building we lived in, let alone who lived across the hall.

And here we are. Fifty-plus years after we arrived we’re watching the lovely homeliness of the County slowly become a kind of weekend bedroom community for a new neighbours. My best guess is some of the dozens of new homes on the go right now will be owned/are owned by people who will never live here or who will just be here for weekends and holidays. Maybe some of those homes are being bought by people who have retired, sold their city place and want to sell high in the city and buy low here. I’m not saying that’s wrong—it is wise—but don’t we all know people who live and work in the County who will never be able to afford a new home here? The County has a community of people who are underemployed, underpaid and underhoused. What will become of their dream to having a decent place to live? Back in the seventies, believe it or not, LOML and I were among the under-housed when we first arrived. Finding a suitable rental was a matter of “knowing a guy, who knows a gal, who has a place, if you don’t mind being next to the barn, sharing a driveway and it’s not within walking distance of anything, if you know what I mean.” The County hasn’t really moved too far from those days. The cost of rent for housing in the County is much higher than it is in most other areas of the province. How would today’s under-housed, underemployed, underpaid people even hope to own one of the so-called affordable homes currently being planned for our “neighbourhoods”? We all know the people who are able to afford buying or renting one of the new builds aren’t the people whose main source of income is barely above the poverty line for Ontario. If a single person works for forty hours per week (assuming there is a job here which is full-time) and earns minimum wage, that person would only be able to afford housing that would cost less than nine the hundred dollars per month. You and I know darned well there ain’t too many places in the County where an individual could find a safe, clean place to live for under nine hundred dollars a month. And, what happens when there’s family involved? The face of, and sense of community, the neighbourliness, the homeliness of the County is changing. For us, the barometer of change is noticeable on “our block”. Of the fourteen homes situated on our block, three of those houses are empty, one is for sale, we know five of the owner/renters in the houses that are occupied, one house is slated for demolition and will likely be replaced.

Did you know one fifth of all Canadians live and work in rural communities? According to the Ministry of Rural Economic Development, the need for affordable and attainable housing is one of the top priorities along with the need for new/improved infrastructure where people live and work. I see a lot of new housing being built in the County, but how much of it will be affordable and attainable? I think we all know how the issue of improved infrastructure is going.

theresa@wellingtontimes.ca