Rural municipalities being shut-out for housing funding: Mayor

At a media conference Wednesday morning with Adam Goheen, Director of Housing, Elis Ziegler, Affordable Housing Supervisor, Phil St.-Jean, board chair, and Mayor Steve Ferguson, it was stated plans in place could move forward, but at a much slower pace, due to the lack of funding.

Prince Edward County Mayor Steve Ferguson wants a review of current and future National Housing Strategy programs stating he’s troubled that efforts by the County, and other rural communities to build affordable housing, are being shut out.

The County last week learned its $14.2 million application was denied by Canada Mortgage and Housing’s (CMHC’s) Housing Accelerator Fund and Ferguson noted neighbouring municipalities Quinte West and Belleville were also denied assistance to create affordable and attainable housing.

“The County of Prince Edward was forced to apply under the ‘large/urban’ application stream of HAF because our population is greater than 10,000 people,” said Ferguson. “Perhaps not surprising, then, that the vast majority of funding in this stream has gone to large urban centres. In fact, according to our analysis, only two rural Ontario municipalities have been awarded funding in this stream, for a total of $12 million of the $3.5 billion awarded to date.”

The CMHC fund stated it encouraged initiatives aimed at increasing housing supply and the development of affordable housing within the community. The municipality applied last fall.

“I understand the housing needs in our biggest cities are great, but shutting out rural communities is unacceptable. Our $14 million ask might not seem like a big deal for big cities that are receiving hundreds of millions of dollars, but an investment on that scale could have been transformational.”

The flagship of the County’s application was to acquire the Queen Elizabeth School property at 35 Barker St., central to Picton, with a broader idea to create at least 100 affordable and attainable housing units along with a community hub of services, including child care, and supports. There had been more than a dozen expressions of interest received from community groups wishing to join the hub.

The application also included support to implement a long-term secondary suites program, transitional and worker housing, and public private partnerships for affordable, supportive and subsidized housing.

At a media conference Wednesday morning with Adam Goheen, Director of Housing, Elis Ziegler, Affordable Housing Supervisor and Phil St.-Jean, board chair, it was stated all the plans in place could move forward, but at a much slower pace, due to the lack of funding.

The application, noted Goheen, “was structured to generate units in a community. So it was a funding formula that arrived at that $14.2 million, but was predicated on our inputs of the amount of units that each initiative would generate.”

At the Committee of the Whole meeting on April 11, council will hear options from municipal staff on how to continue to move forward with the acquisition of the former school property, which closed in 2018 after 65 years.

The Hastings Prince Edward District School Board had approved the sale of the nearly five-acre property last year.

It had become available again, after the first approved Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic District School Board buyers for St. Gregory Catholic Elementary School, received $8.7 million from Ontario government programs to build a new 354-pupil school on Talbot Street.

The County had applied for acquisition in the first round the school was declared surplus, but the catholic school board ranks higher on the mandatory dispersal list.

The Prince Edward Lennox and Addington Social Services (PELASS) also ranked higher than the County, so agreed to partner in an expression of interest, and this second time, was the highest ranked submission.

As it stands, the school board still owns the property at 35 Barker Street.

The County was completing necessary work to waive the conditions of the Purchase and Sale Agreement and had until March 9, 2024, to satisfy the required due diligence (environmental assessments, building condition assessment, etc.) and secure the funding for the purchase.

The agreement of purchase and sale was conditional on the funding and environmental assessments, which has been extended to the end of June 2024.

The offer was conditional on the County securing funding through CMCH National Housing Strategy Co-Investment Funding Program which would allow the purchase price to be an eligible expense for reimbursement resulting in the purchase of the property ultimately being at no cost to the County or PELASS and the County would own the building.

“This is an ideal location for affordable housing and related community supports, and an opportunity this community has been working towards since 2019 in cooperation with the provincial government, the Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board, and the Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic District School Board,” said Ferguson.

“I am calling on CMHC and the Government of Canada to review this program and any future programs under the National Housing Strategy. I urge them to make the distribution of funds more equitable across communities of all sizes. We are in the middle of a housing crisis, and the government of Canada’s approach risks leaving many rural residents without a place to call home.”