Three bishops, a United Church regional leader and Rev. Danie have signed a letter that calls for major provincial efforts to preserve existing affordable housing, to protect tenants, and to fund a huge increase in the number of non-profit and co-op housing units in Ontario.
The letter, drafted by our affordable housing team, has been signed by Rev. Douglas Crosby, Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Hamilton, top left; Rev. Danie; Rev. Mark Laird, bottom left, Executive Minister of three southwestern Ontario Regional Councils of the United Church of Canada; Rev. Carla Blakely, Bishop of the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada; and Rev. Dr. Susan Bell, Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Niagara, bottom right. Each of these geographic jurisdictions includes Hamilton, among many other municipalities.
The letter described as “a moral crisis” the lack of affordability and increasing precariousness faced by rising numbers of Ontarians. It calls on all candidates in this election to commit to urgent, specific steps to solve it. Too often, calls for action are vague. The intent with the letter is to make specific proposals that housing experts, researchers, advocacy organizations and those with lived experience with today’s rental housing market insist are needed. These include an end to the leeway landlords currently enjoy to impose unlimited rent increases whenever rental units change tenancies, stronger protections from no-fault evictions, and funding to double in a decade the roughly 350,000 non-profit affordable housing units in Ontario.
“The task of building the needed new housing and preventing further losses of affordable housing units cannot be postponed,” the letter says. Without such significant efforts, we will never solve homelessness and will leave more than 800,000 households in Ontario suffering with the stress of being obliged to pay soaring rents, leaving them unable to cover other necessities, and the constant worry of losing their home, leaving them drained, year after year.
Click here to read the full letter. Click here to read the detailed backgrounder that explains the policies in the letter.