I don’t know whether to laugh or scream sometimes about NIMBYism.
That’s how I felt this week after reading about public opposition to building low-rise apartments a 10-minute walk from my northend Brantford house.
Residents oppose building affordable housing here.
A developer wants to put up two six-storey buildings with 150 units and two four-storey ones with another 78 on a property that used to house a fitness club, gymnastics club and a RONA. The taller building would feature apartments with market rent; the smaller ones would offer affordable housing.
Did I scare you, just then? Sorry. You’re not the only one. Area residents are spooked by the idea of affordable housing. About 25 people at a public meeting made that plain.
Perhaps resident Tony Locche put it best: “With all due respect to political correctness, affordable housing is a problem. My main concern is crime,” he was quoted in The Expositor.
Just in case you’re ignorant, it has been scientifically proven that affordable housing leads to crime. Numerous studies have shown that a family’s inability to pay market rent causes them and their children to break the law. Affordable housing is a major cause of break-ins, robberies, drug peddling and gang violence. Just ask the police, they’ll tell you. It’s a fact.
Other residents expressed fear that affordable housing would cause the value of their properties to plummet, putting them in the poorhouse — another documented fact linked to the scourge of cheaper rents.
Brantford’s director of housing tried to explain that affordable housing isn’t the same as social housing. Social housing provides rent-geared-to-income units for people living on social assistance, disability pensions and limited incomes. Social housing can offer cheaper rents than regular apartments because builders get grants from the government upfront, but their rents aren’t subsidized.
Still, residents weren’t having any of it. They still saw the mere suggestion of affordable housing as a slap in the face to honest, hard-working people everywhere. Affordable housing didn’t belong in their neighbourhood, they said. They already have a problem with teenagers hanging around and causing trouble.
Residents want the affordable apartments built somewhere else, not near their condos, which they paid $250,000 to $300,000 for. One condo resident suggested he should be compensated if the affordable units are built — based, of course, on the scientific evidence showing the drop in property value mentioned earlier.
Sadly, even city councillors got in the act, suggesting that because two dozen residents objected, the builder’s plan was clearly flawed and wrong for the neighbourhood. Send it back to the drawing board, they said. Instead of trying to make their constituents see reason, the councillors jumped on the NIMBY bandwagon. Shameful.
It is sad. It’s not the housing that is the problem it is the societal segragation and basic state of sterotype. Also the lack of responsibilty to each individual. Guaranteed lack of clear perpsective of any humanity. Children do not break the law due to ONLY the fact that they live in ‘affordable housing’. There is so much more complexity involved it that scapegoated reason.
As it is an uneducated gullable view.
I wonder if the people opposed to it realize that they ARE a part of the societal downgrading that makes those children feel as though they have no where to go and no other choice. Still parents are root. As we all say, it takes a village to raise a child. Do we only mean “good” children? Is it fair to close the village to other children?
Working in this field I see it everyday, There is so many more problems added rather than solutions, and it seems Everyone forgets to own thier responsibility inside of the outcome. “Someone Else” will do it. Right?
If the police get called to one neighbourhood for one bad seed, several times it makes the crime rate for that area rise. Obviously. The Police deal with facts of law and crime, yet we must remember they are not social workers nor psychotherapists.
I can say it is a slap in the face to hard working responsible people. Being a hard working single mother myself, when I needed ‘affordable housing’, due to a work injury my life changed in an instant. Was I viewed as a drug dealer or perhaps a thief? I can assure I am not the only one like me.
Judgement is small box.
Thanks Mark for this article. Really well written.
[...] Nimbyism in my Backyard…..Mark Skeffington. [...]
Thanks, Dawna
The people in the neighbourhood don’t seem to get that if there is crime already there — without affordable housing — it cannot be caused by cheaper rents. Hence my sarcasm.
And, as you said, the stereotypes are disturbing. Crime comes from kids who grew up in wealthy homes, middle-class homes, and poor ones.
Hi Mark,
This is a valuable blog entry. It took me time though to get your sarcasm. It is me I think. People will live in cheap houses. That is bad? What happened to people? I don’t know…Safety and having a secure life is the top priority.Well, we have created our own Frankenstein, so we enjoy it! (This is my way for sarcasm