Expropriate Sherbourne — A look into our 2019 public housing proposal venture
The deadly housing crisis has overtaken the most educated and privileged by stripping off their fundamental rights to reside in a place of one’s choice. The soft underbelly of Toronto comprises of homelessness that has ignited itself like never before in today’s times. Walking in the streets of downtown in the company of multiple corners captured by people sleeping there has become an increasingly common sight, reason being the lack of shelter provisions that they can afford. Accumulating all the external add-on adversities with the pre-existing stressful living situations, an average of two homeless people dies every week according to City records, making the homeless population have a median life expectancy of only 54 years.
The housing market not only bombarded people’s financial stances with obscene rents and debts, it is also depriving the poor off their meagre available housing options. These consequences are also faced by the Dundas Sherbourne corridor, one of Toronto’s poorest neighbourhoods.
In May 2019, OACC collaborated with Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) and allied architects, academics and activists, to create a report that proposes the plan for building hundreds of publicly-owned rent-geared-to-income housing units that can transform the Dundas and Sherbourne neighbourhood into a vibrant community by including its most vulnerable residents, instead of pushing them out.
A series of public sessions with the Sherbourne community were held at 214–230 Sherbourne, that were marched to City Hall to reclaim houses for the poor and working class people for generations. 214–230 Sherbourne comprises of seven adjacent properties, located at the Southwest corner of Dundas and Sherbourne that had been housing a population of poor people for the last 50 years. Eleven years ago, two of those houses were demolished, leaving just one 30 room house standing. The purpose of the owners was to sell the property to private condo developers, that is not really the housing that poor people could afford. Hence, this was a call to the city to expropriate these properties and build social housing.
From the eyes of the press
A media conference was conducted at City Hall in June, 2019, where our team put forth our plan to build up to 250 rent-geared-to-income public housing units at 214–230 Sherbourne.
It acquired a lot of media coverage in the following month of July. CBC Canada quoted Mayor John Tory as saying that expropriation was an option available to the city, but there is a careful process that council has to go through and that it couldn’t select processes just based on the proposal of a single group. He also added that he was hopeful that a proposal for an affordable housing allowance that would help to subsidize the cost of rent will get approval from provincial and federal governments, and will also help with the city’s affordable housing challenges.
The Star interviewed the team to publish their reasons for this proposal and their approach and opinion about the affordability crisis in Toronto.
“Toronto does not have formal guidelines when it comes to taking over property for affordable housing — a gap city staff identified in 2018 after being instructed to report back on the feasibility of expropriating the Sherbourne properties to be used as affordable housing. City staff have since been instructed to draft “a policy or standardized approach” for acquiring real estate for affordable housing, expected to come back to committee in the fall.”
CP24 covered the affordability crisis as well, quoting the proponents as “the proposal is a reaction to a “deadly” housing crisis in Toronto, where vacancies are low, rents are high and most new developments are for private condos.”
Other news channels and public forums such as Toronto Storeys and Urban Toronto also discussed the advocacy and motive behind the Expropriate Sherbourne project, carrying forward a balance of agreements and disagreements by the public.
The report and the proposal succeeded in shedding light on the living situations of the poor segment of our society in Toronto, but that was all the initiative that organizations such as OACC and OCAP and social housing focused architects, designers and academicians could put forward. There is still a long road ahead leading to solving the issue of affordability that we need to embark on with constant resilience, to convince the higher officials for the implementation of a more equitably livelihood for all.
