Hamilton Food Share survey shows housing boom cutting into household budgets
Reports show 80% of food bank users spend more than half of monthly income on rent
Hamilton Food Share says four out of five food bank users spend more than half their income on housing.
It's latest survey shows how the city's housing boom — driving up house prices and rents — is being felt by those least able to deal with it and putting many on the brink of homelessness.
The new statistics collected by Hamilton Food Share show that in March of 2017, 80 per cent of users paid more than half their income on housing. That's 63 per cent higher than it was just a year ago in its March, 2016 survey.
At that time, 49 per cent of users paid more than half their income on housing.
What's significant about the "more than half of income" benchmark, according to a 2012 analysis by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, is that it qualifies a person as being at "extreme" risk of homelessness.
The CMHC says that a household spending "30% or more of its total before-tax income," falls within "core housing need," or in other words, represents a person or family at risk of becoming homeless.
When a household has put half or more of its income toward rent, it falls within the category CMHC calls "extreme core housing need."
Affordable housing crisis
Hamilton Food Share is calling this situation "a crisis in affordable housing."
"75% of our users are paying market rent," said Hamilton Food Share Executive Director Joanna Santucci, "and the disparity is huge," she said, referring to their typical income versus market rent.
"Hamilton Food Share is calling upon city councilors to take an unprecedented step toward ending homelessness by supporting the $50 million Poverty Reduction Investment Plan being presented to council on April 5th," says the organization's press release.
If you look around the province, so many communities are grappling with this.- Joanne Santucci, Hamilton Food Share
That poverty reduction plan was co-drafted by over 30 local organizations,and recommends that the city invest the $50 million into poverty reduction between 2017 and 2027.
Food Share is the umbrella organization for the area's 11 foodbanks and collects more than 2.5 million pounds of food each year.
In broad strokes, the proposed strategy for that target is to get the first $20 million by "extending the payback term for existing city loans from the Future Fund from 2031 to 2036 for affordable housing."
The other $30 million "at $3 million per year for 10 years" would be "derived from the dividend uplift to the city resulting from the merger of Horizon Utilities Corporation and several other local utilities into the new entity provisionally called MergeCo for poverty reduction over 10 years."
The plan goes on to recommend how that $50 million should break down.
For example, it suggests putting $10 million over the next two-and-a-half years into the restoration of 200 social housing units. It also points out that "there are 5947 individuals and families on the waiting list for social housing."
The 14-page document set to go before the General Issues Committee on April 5 goes into detail with further suggestions and alternatives.
"It's unprecedented to spend this amount of money on poverty and anti-poverty strategies. If you look around the province, so many communities are grappling with this," said Santucci.
"I encourage all the councilors to take a hard look at this."