Victoria Park Tent City

[tomh009]

So there is a "tent city" at Victoria Park again.  I say that in quotes because I counted a grand total of 17 tents and maybe a dozen people at the gazebo.
http://www.therecord.com/news-story/5694...y-visible/

It appears the infamous Julian Ichim (CPC-ML candidate and disruptor of Remembrance Day ceremonies, among other things) is again one of the organizers.


"We are seeing the displacement of poor people to make room for condos," Ichim told The Record.  Completely ignoring the fact, of course, that no housing of any kind has been lost to 1 Victoria, City Centre, Arrow or Kaufman.

http://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/calling-for-...-1.2438731
“We’re seeing more and more low-income housing torn down to make room for what is being seen as revitalization,” Ichim told CTV.  He didn't mention what low-income housing had been torn down, though.

Apparently they also feel that "light rail transit construction could further alienate impoverished communities downtown."

On this topic: I am very supportive of eradicating poverty, both in Canada and abroad.  But this particular protest seems at best misguided.

[MidTowner]

So there is a "tent city" at Victoria Park again.  I say that in quotes because I counted a grand total of 17 tents and maybe a dozen people at the gazebo.

Tent hamlet, maybe.

I usually hate the comments in the Record, but loved this one by Chris:

"When we occupy it becomes impossible to ignore the people". Actually, I have been ignoring Julian Ichim for years and will continue to do so. Pick up your trash when you pack up the tents kids, leave it better then [sic] you found it.'

[Markster]

The image of a low-rise tenement full of low-income dwellers being torn down and replaced by a high rise condo tower for the wealthy is commonly bandied about.  While this exact scenario is not currently happening here, it is a disservice to the conversation to pretend that this means that there is no pressure being placed upon the low-rent apartments. More common around here, would be rooming houses being returned to owner-occupancy, apartments over stores being converted to offices, and a general increase of rents due to demand.

Gentrification can be a huge problem, as San Francisco has discovered.  Locals get priced out of their own apartments, and have to move out, due to the demand for a now-trendy neighbourhood.  Long-standing businesses catering to them get replaced by middle or high-end replacements, putting financial pressure on those who remain.

It does frustrate me that the anti-Gentrification crowd is always decrying new development, nearly regardless of what it is.  Realistically, I feel the best solution is to build enough new stuff for the rich people, since there's basically no stopping them.  Let them buy up the new housing, leaving the existing housing stock for the existing locals, at lower prices.

[tomh009]

It does frustrate me that the anti-Gentrification crowd is always decrying new development, nearly regardless of what it is.  Realistically, I feel the best solution is to build enough new stuff for the rich people, since there's basically no stopping them.  Let them buy up the new housing, leaving the existing housing stock for the existing locals, at lower prices.

Yes.  And this is what 1 Victoria and City Centre are doing: adding housing stock without removing existing units.

If we can also add some more new buildings similar to Bread & Roses it would be great.  Although I'm not sure what rent level would qualify as low-income housing in Kitchener these days.

[TMKM94]

So there is a "tent city" at Victoria Park again.  I say that in quotes because I counted a grand total of 17 tents and maybe a dozen people at the gazebo.
http://www.therecord.com/news-story/5694...y-visible/

It appears the infamous Julian Ichim (CPC-ML candidate and disruptor of Remembrance Day ceremonies, among other things) is again one of the organizers.


"We are seeing the displacement of poor people to make room for condos," Ichim told The Record.  Completely ignoring the fact, of course, that no housing of any kind has been lost to 1 Victoria, City Centre, Arrow or Kaufman.

http://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/calling-for-...-1.2438731
“We’re seeing more and more low-income housing torn down to make room for what is being seen as revitalization,” Ichim told CTV.  He didn't mention what low-income housing had been torn down, though.

Apparently they also feel that "light rail transit construction could further alienate impoverished communities downtown."

On this topic: I am very supportive of eradicating poverty, both in Canada and abroad.  But this particular protest seems at best misguided.

Midtown lofts are going (across the street from King Edward) I'm pretty sure the buildings being demolished for Midtown were low income housing also the buildings where 100 Victoria are going, But IMO as long as if the building is not historically significant or has potential and if the low income housing gets replaced somewhere in the area then it's fine if the building is demolished. 

[BuildingScout]

Gentrification can be a huge problem, as San Francisco has discovered.  Locals get priced out of their own apartments, and have to move out, due to the demand for a now-trendy neighbourhood.  Long-standing businesses catering to them get replaced by middle or high-end replacements, putting financial pressure on those who remain.

This is not what gentrification originally meant. Gentrification meant taking over a crime ridden neighbourhood and cleaning it up. However there are plenty of eeyores out there who must find something wrong with what is a great step in urban renewal.

[tomh009]

Midtown lofts are going (across the street from King Edward) I'm pretty sure the buildings being demolished for Midtown were low income housing also the buildings where 100 Victoria are going, But IMO as long as if the building is not historically significant or has potential and if the low income housing gets replaced somewhere in the area then it's fine if the building is demolished. 

Fair enough, I did forget that one.  But those houses might have contained half a dozen rental units at most, between them.

I'd like to see the city provide a nice subsidy to another multi-unit residential building aimed at lower income residents, somewhere in the core.  Maybe it would even convince one of the developers that are sitting on idle properties to develop it.

[Markster]

The Mayfair and Barra Castle used to be low-rent apartments.  I'm sure the David St crackhouses were too. Their replacements will not be.

It's a matter of "a little here, a little there" all adding up to real pressure on rents in the area.

While we, the edumacated public, often see Gentrification as a Good Thing, cleaning up an unfriendly neighbourhood, one must remember to see the bad with the good.  Not having their plight acknowledged is what drives the anger.

[BuildingScout]

  Not having their plight acknowledged is what drives the anger.

Really? because I have yet to meet an actual person who used to live in a now gentrified area complain about it. It always seem to be the chattering classes who complain most about it.

Cities with a rate of gentrification of ≈40% or more in the decade from 2000 to 2010 included:[sup][63][/sup]

• Portland, Oregon 58.1%
  
• Washington, DC 51.9%
  
• Minneapolis, Minnesota 50.6%
  
• Seattle 50%
  
• Atlanta 46.2%
  
• Virginia Beach 46.2%
  
• Denver 42.1%
  
• Austin 39.7%
  

Cities with a rate of less than 10% in the decade from 2000 to 2010 included:[sup][63][/sup]

• Memphis 8.8%
  
• Tucson 8.3%
  
• Tulsa 7%
  
• Cleveland 6.7%
  
• Detroit 2.8%
  
• Las Vegas, Nevada 2%
  
• El Paso 0%
  
• Arlington, Texas 0%
  

You choose.

[mpd618]

  Not having their plight acknowledged is what drives the anger.

Really? because I have yet to meet an actual person who used to live in a now gentrified area complain about it. It always seem to be the chattering classes who complain most about it.

Not much offense meant, but that may say more about your social circles than the existence and experience of affected people. Those who are affected aren't exactly the most outspoken or listened-to people. They are't the ones that pack council chambers and organize letter-writing campaigns to protest sidewalks or traffic on their street - and have the city cater to their every whim.

[BuildingScout]

So you are telling me that there are people out there, living in a crime ridden part of town saying "man, this darn gentrification, with its safer, cleaner streets and better public schools"?

[mpd618]

So you are telling me that there are people out there, living in a crime ridden part of town saying "man, this darn gentrification, with its safer, cleaner streets and better public schools"?

No? There are people who lived in low-rent units that have been demolished, or currently live in ones that there is pressure to redevelop. None of the replacements are going to be low-rent, and there is the pretty real possibility that people in that situation will be forced to live in more outlying areas and/or share housing with more people per unit. What good is it to you that your neighbourhood is nicer if you can no longer afford to live there?

The harm in pushing low-income people out of downtown is that their access to services and employment opportunities is reduced, and transportation costs go up - so it makes living on a low income harder.

(I'm not sure what schools have to do with it, since funding isn't dependent on the district a school is in....)

I think the real solution is to allow lots of new housing to be built to put downward pressure on market rents, and to have strong incentives or programs to create subsidized housing in areas (like downtown) with good access. Right now the latter isn't really happening to any significant degree.

[BuildingScout]

I think the real solution is to allow lots of new housing to be built to put downward pressure on market rents,

Exactly.

and to have strong incentives or programs to create subsidized housing in areas (like downtown) with good access.

Subsidized housing also known as projects, which trap people in a bad environment.

[MidTowner]

So you are telling me that there are people out there, living in a crime ridden part of town saying "man, this darn gentrification, with its safer, cleaner streets and better public schools"?

I once lived in a house that had been converted to a duplex, and was sold to a family who wanted to convert it back to a single-family home. Partly because rents were high, and partly just because it was a bad time of year (and all of the other reasons one is unlucky in findinga rental), I had to change neighbourhoods. If you were my former next-door neighbour, you were probably happy about this development (nice family who will be living there hopefully long-term, over two sets of neighbours who might turn over fairly frequently), but I wasn't. I wasn't especially angry, either, as I was given more than the proper notice, and the communication was good. But renters can be vulnerable, and it's not a nice thing to go through, especially if you are on the edge and have a family (I didn't at the time).

This wasn't in Waterloo Region, by the way, but another example is my neighbourhood not far from downtown. I would say it is in a (relatively slow) transition. Around the block from me, a duplex was purchased by a family who had previously flipped a house on my street, and they converted it (back) to a single family home. I know one of the tenants, a very nice late-middle-aged guy who is a sort of casual worker, and he wound up renting a room from a neighbour of mine. So their situation changed materially, and not entirely for the better. Related to this, that neighbour, a working class guy who has been in the neighbourhood for a couple of decades, lately experiences a lot of friction with the newer neighbours, who have tended to be professionals with younger families. Things that he finds normal (drinking beer with no shirt on the front porch, having a comical sign hanging on his mail box), they don't care for. Sometimes it can get more serious, as when he and I were leaving bottles on our porches for a couple of homeless guys to collect, and the one neighbour decided to confront him about attracting "those people" to the neighbourhood.

Anyway, all this to say that gentrification does have some negative side effects, and even in KW, but I agree with you that it is a positive development. And I don't think subsidized housing is the answer, either (relegating certain types of people to certain areas), but rather to relax zoning and remove impediments to developing a wide range of housing in all areas.

[tomh009]

and to have strong incentives or programs to create subsidized housing in areas (like downtown) with good access.

Subsidized housing also known as projects, which trap people in a bad environment.

It depends on how the subsidies are done.  Certainly there are plenty of bad examples in the US, and even places like the Jane-Finch corridor in Toronto.  But it does work in other places.

But subsidizing the construction of appropriate buildings (rather than the rents) through property tax credits etc, to encourage building of new apartment buildings that can accommodate lower-income tenants is not quite the same.  And a key point is to make sure those buildings are integrated into non-subsidized neighbourhoods, to avoid creating large subsidized ghettos (or projects). 

Another option is to encourage (again, maybe through subsidies) new construction to include, say, 10% of apartment units to be "affordable", however that's defined.

Regarding mpd618's point about the neighbourhood conflicts, yes, this can happen.  But I really do believe that many low-income people do want to live in a "nice" or "clean" home, as long as they can afford it.  We just need to make those kinds of homes available, by focusing the construction costs on the essentials and not on fripperies.  And making appropriate-size units, of course.