Fw: Housing not spin doctors!
Graeme Bacque (gbacque@idirect.com)
Tue, 13 Oct 1998 23:20:34 -0700
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Shapcott <mshapcot@web.net>
To: mshapcott@chfc.ca <mshapcott@chfc.ca>
Date: Tuesday, October 13, 1998 7:45 PM
Subject: ACT-CUTS-ONT-L: Housing not spin doctors!
The following press release was issued October 13, 1998,
by the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada - Ontario Region
#207 - 2 Berkeley Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5A 2W3
For immediate release
Ontario's homeless need more housing,
not more political spin from the provincial government
The Ontario government should spend less time trying to con the people and
more time funding development of desperately-needed new housing. ate in
the day on the Friday before a holiday weekend, the Harris government tried
to quietly sneak out the final report of its homeless task force. One day
earlier in the Legislature, opposition parties released a secret
communications plan that shows the province is prepared to resort to deceit
to gain control of federal social housing programs and download them to
municipalities. "There is a groundswell that recognizes that homelessness
is a disaster," says Bill Morris, Manager of Government Relations for CHF
Ontario Region. "Yet the province has responded by first denying there is a
crisis and then saying it is up to other levels of government to fix."
Homeless people won't find solutions in the Ontario report. "It recommends
tax cuts to private developers to spur new construction, but these tired,
old ideas have failed in the past," says Morris. "While the task force is
urging Ottawa and municipalities to make big tax cuts, the province has not
committed one penny of its own money. Since its election in 1995, the
Harris government has said that it will rely on the private sector to build
affordable housing. In the last three years, the private sector has started
construction on less than 2,000 units across the entire province. Compare
that to the 17,000 units of co-op and non-profit housing that the Harris
government killed weeks after it assumed office."
The task force applauds increased provincial spending on short-term
hostels. "Hostels are an expensive bandage when the homeless really need
long-term housing," says Morris. One of the last co-ops to be built in
Ontario is on the site of a former welfare motel in Scarborough. The
provincial and city governments pay motel owners more than $3,100 per month
for an entire family to live in a single room. The same family can live in
a full co-op townhouse for about $1,100.
"Meanwhile, behind the scenes provincial officials are furiously lobbying
Ottawa to hand over the administration of federal social housing stock,"
says Morris. "Co-op members, federal MPs, and a growing number of
municipalities are opposed to including co-ops in the federal-provincial
transfer. The secret communications plan, released in the Legislature on
Thursday, shows that the province will try to pretend that there is a
consensus on social housing reform in order to move ahead with its plan to
download all social housing to municipalities. It is a shocking and cynical
document."
For information, call Bill Morris or Michael Shapcott at 416-366-1711.
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For information, e-mail: mshapcott@chfc.ca