Waiting list of 1,800 in Toronto

By
BRUCE
MAGNUSON

LMOST two years ago, Rob-
ert Macauley, then Ont-
‘p;.. atio’s minister of econo-

Ics and development, an-
Sunced a 12-point program to
lve the housing problem in
tropolitan Toronto. This was
tailed as the greatest thing
‘Yer. The time allotted for the
“sk was one year.

2groven months ago, on April

» S. J. Randall, the present
*onomics minister, announced
lis the Legislature that the ac-
|,Y€ waiting list for low-rental
°using from the Metropolitan
gyeonto Housing Authority was
er 1,800.

New applications were com-
-in at a rate of 200 per

ca

tonto and 50 percent in the
_€r Metro municipalities.

facuting the subsequent de-
te Stephen Lewis, MPP for
Thoro West, said he had
thewed with the housing au-
|i’ in early April. At that
“Of © the waiting list was 1,712.
lon nese, 157 families were
7 Ing for one-bedroom homes,
thr for two bedrooms, 628 for
‘ie bedrooms, 345 for four
to TOooms and 106 for five bed-
Bacs. This applied to low-
“Mal family housing.

“ANADA’S union membership
has gone up to a record
fy 1,493,00 at the beginning
964, This is an increase of
000 over the previous year.

-
b ‘Because you can’t afford to
h : 9 turkey we've arranged to

Migs YOu work all day Christ-

These figures did not include
old-age citizens, of which some
2,500 were looking for low-
rental housing. Eighty percent
were women.

Applications were coming in
at a rate of 8 to 10 per day.
The first space available will be
when the Thistletown project is
opened up in two or three years.
By that time the waiting list
will be around 5,000 to 6,000.

Back in 1958 Metro Toronto
set an objective of 1,000 low-
rental housing units per year.

The actual number built is
less than 400, or about 7 per-
cent of the target. In housing
for senior citizens less than half.
this target has been achieved.

The situation with respect to
low-rental housing for low in-
come groups and for persons on
welfare is becoming more and
more serious in Ontario.

In Toronto there are slum
landlords who own _ housing
which should have been con-
demned long ago and which
now has a reduced tax assess-
ment. Measured against taxes,
the rents paid by tenants for
this type of housing is relative-
ly higher than for good hous-
ing. Often it is paid by persons
on welfare rolls. The low as-
sessment actually becomes &
tax subsidy to the landlord.

The program to meet the
need for low-rental housing, to
deal with urban blight, to plan
urban development, lags serious-
ly behind. On the other side of
the scale, private . speculators
and developers are left to do
much as they please.

The figures were recently re-
leased by the Dominion Bureau
of Statistics.

The increase in membership
for unions affiliated with the
Canadian Labor Congress was
26,000. For the independent Con-
federation of National Trade
Unions in Quebec, the increase
in union strength was by 11,000.

In spite of this increase, how-
ever, there has actually been
a decline in comparative union
strength.

Organized labor has slipped

- to 29.4 percent of the non-agri-

cultural work force. It was 29.9
percent last year. This conti-
nues a decline since 1958 when
nearly 35 percent of the non-
agricultural work force were
trade-union members.

In spite of the fact that the
Canadian unionists now number

Beauty has a high price tag in Toronto. These balconies
belong to a high-rise, high-price apartment on Walmer Road.
But there is no boom in the construction of low-rental housing.
Only 400 units have been built since 1958.

High-rise and high-rent apart-
ments are build indiscriminate-

ly to overtax local services,
The cost of additional services
such as parks, schools, street
repairs, sewers, becomes an

nearly 1,500,000, up 44,000 from
last year, the labor force has
grown faster still. The prospect
is a continued decline unless
organized labor can make a
historic breakthrough into the
fast-growing and mostly unor-
ganized ranks of the white-col-
lar workers.

Meanwhile automation is par-
ing away the blue-collar work-
ers on which unions have tradi-
tionally been founded. Last year
the Canadian Labor Congress
signed up nearly 100,000 new
members. But the CLC ended
the year with only about 26,000
more members. Its share of
total union membership in Can-
ada shrank slightly to 74 per-
cent from 74.5.

An example of automation’s
effect on union strength is
shown by the highly unionized

added burden to local home-
owners.

In Hamilton, the local hous-
ing authority operates about
1,000 low-rental, subsidized
housing units. About 40 old-

While trade unions are gaining members
Ihey have declined in comparative strength

non-operating railway workers.
In 1952 there were 145,000 of
them. By 1958 this number had
shrunk to 130,000. Now it’s
down to 100,000 and still de-
clining but expected to stabil-
ize at about 75,000.

The service. industries are
only about 10 percent organized
and they are the growth sec-
tors.

The biggest union gains in
Canada were during the Second
World War and the immediate
postwar period when Canada’s
industrial machine was being
built,

At the beginning of the war
only 17 percent of the non-farm
working force belonged to
unions, At its peak before the
present decline, percentage
union strength had doubled the
pre-war figure.

Urgent need in Ontario
for low-rental housing

age pensioners are provided
for by the Hamilton Housing
Committee.

There is a need for several
times this amount of living
space. Pockets of substandard
housing exist everywhere in the
older sections of the city.

e

Ontario’s minister of muni-
cipal affairs, J. W. Spooner, re-
ported in 1962 that in Sault
Ste. Marie evidence of blight
caused 55 percent of the struc-
tures in the city to be clas-
sified as “less than good.”

In Sudbury, the need for
more low-rental housing has
reached “dangerous  propor-
tions,” says William Powell,
manager of the local housing
authority.

In every one of the 39 local
housing authorities operated
under the jurisdiction of the
provincial housing corporation
the story is the same.

The National Housing Act
provides 75 percent of the cap-
ital cost for low-rental housing
planned jointly with the prov-
inces and municipalities. The
provinces are asked to put up
17.5 percent and the municipa-
lities 7.5 percent. ;

But the federal government
puts too many restrictions in
the way of maximum use of
legislative provisions in this
field. The local governments
and taxpayers are not in any
Position to raise the 7.5 percent
required of them. Provincial
governments are hedging on
the issue.

What is sorely needed is a
nationwide campaign for fed-
eral action on urban renewal
and provision of low-rental
housing.

A cut of at least 50 percent
in the wasteful and largely ob-
solete armaments program
would provide the funds. This
was the conclusion reached
earlier this year at the Ontario
conference called by the Com-
munist Party to discuss provin-
cial-municipal issues.

The responsibility to provide
the needed capital, to abolish
red tape in the way of adequate
and speedy action in the hous-
ing field, now rests with the
senior governments, primarily
the provinces.

Municipal red tape standing
in the way can easily and
quickly be removed by provin-
cial authorities through proper —
negotiation and democratic ac-
tion. Conversely, municipalities
need to press senior govern-
ments for action.

__It is important that civic can-
didates in urban areas pledge
themselves to a program of ac-
tion on urban renewal and the
need for low-rental, subsidized
housing for low income people

December 11, 1964—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 5