Social Development Centre Waterloo Region

In the third part of the series, you can think with us about "How Did We Get Here?". The conditions for the current affordable housing crisis have been building up for decades. Many policy changes in Canada and Ontario since the 90’s could be named, such as the interruption of the federal investment in social and non-market housing, provincial cuts to social assistance programs, or downloading of social service costs to municipalities. The list would go on. The point here is not to unpack the policy changes. The focus is on shedding light on the mindset that created those policies or that failed to anticipate and respond to the crisis in the making. It is the same mindset that has been shaping the course of the urban development and gentrification in cities around the world, as well as in Waterloo Region. 

Building cheap and non-profitable housing seems to be an impossible scenario, especially in the urban core along major transit lines - except for all other conceivable scenarios. The Life Stories project started recording the history of our community told by persons who live on low income and have experienced marginalization in its many forms. Their voices were not represented in the long sequence of decisions that brought us to the present moment of reshaping urban development in the region. To read their testimonies and to listen to the full interview podcasts, go to the Life Stories of Displacement page where we will continue publishing three more episodes to better understand displacement, consider how we got to the crisis and how social justice and social commons can shape the future of our cities.

 "This is not about working-class areas being taken over by incoming hipsters and middle-class residents and businesses. This is another phenomenon entirely. This is about how global private equity firms have become leading players in the property market since the 2008 crash. This was predicted by the late geographer Neil Smith in the 1970s, who argued that when the gap becomes big enough between the rent a property earns and what it could earn if redeveloped for new residents, private capital would flow in, attracted by the potential to make large profits."  Anna Minton, The Guardian on September 20, 2019

The Age of Gentrification study is an introduction to the Life Stories of Displacement series about the living experience of displacement in the urban core of Kitchener-Waterloo created in collaboration with the University of Waterloo Professor Brian Doucet, School of Planning. Continue reading and follow us for more articles and podcasts. 

Trudy Beaulne had many bold ideas, and her vision to build a more caring and just world was grounded in connections among grassroots, resident-led groups who share resources, knowledge and grow together. Civic Hub is a collaborative and inclusive space, where grassroots is anchored, where faces go with names, and where energy and ideas are activated.