Community Foundation Grey Bruce was able to share an update with Bruce County Council.
They presented their newest report, titled Vital Focus on Housing.
Executive Director Stuart Reid says that the housing crisis is not just a problem for the economically challenged.
He says working people who traditionally could be thought of as “middle-class” are experiencing a lack of housing options.
“The secret is out, and both Grey and Bruce counties are very much desired locations for migrants from the GTA, and in that competitive real estate market our area’s growing in popularity and it means that housing prices are climbing higher and higher.”
Reid says that not everyone has the same equal access to affordable housing.
CFGB has active partnerships with organizations such as Habitat For Humanity and the United Way.
“We go back to the United Way, and they break down how much it costs to afford a market rent of $1500 a month, which as we understand is a pretty good deal these days for a one-bedroom rental. A household earner must make $60,000 per year or $32.96 an hour on a 35-hour work week. So that kind of extrapolates the cost into real numbers about how unattainable a lot of that is for people.”
The current Habitat for Humanity project is building houses on both the Neyaashiinigmiing and Saugeen Nations.
Community Foundation Grey Bruce also works with the Indigenous Housing Project.
“Some of the work with M’Wikwedong and Giiwe and Indigenous Supportive Housing Project, which has various assists for Indigenous people living in urban settings, and also advocates for a broader understanding of the Indigenous definitions of homelessness which are quite different from other more common definitions of homelessness.”
Supports for the homeless or the housing-challenged are inadequate because of increased demand.
A shortage of housing presents its own challenges.
“Staff that were looking at affordable housing units are experiencing opposition because of NIMBYism — ‘not in my backyard’ — and solutions such as multi-family homes and in-filling are opposed.”
