Inaccurate data makes it 'impossible' to build affordable housing, rural county says

Ken How is trying to crook an abandoned agrarian Ontario schoolhouse into affordable lodging — a hard task made harder, helium says, by inaccurate rental information that puts national backing retired of reach.

"It's similar you're swimming upstream — each the time," helium said.

The retired simple schoolhouse teacher turned non-profit lodging developer supervises a tiny squad of volunteers undertaking the ambitious conversion.

Their imaginativeness is to respire caller beingness into the former Pinecrest Public School adjacent the centre of Prince Edward County, a mostly agrarian municipality jutting into Lake Ontario astir an hour's thrust westbound of Kingston.

How's extremity is to crook it into an affordable lodging analyzable and assemblage hub for low-income seniors, implicit with a aesculapian office, gym and dedicated space for crafts.

He said the task is simply a nonstop effect to a dire request successful the aging community, wherever affordable apartments for seniors are present successful higher request than classrooms.

"People conscionable can't spend to unrecorded here, truthful they bargain a autobus summons and they leave," How said.

His non-profit, Pinecrest Housing, purchased the gathering alongside 20 acres of surrounding onshore successful the Bloomfield country for about $400,000, or less than it would outgo to buy a batch successful the region hub of Picton, he said.

Now, they're successful hunt of backing to alteration it.

Pinecrest Housing has raised much than a cardinal dollars, truthful far but the conversion volition cost millions more.

How said efforts to unafraid a indebtedness from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) person turned his once-brown hairsbreadth grey.

"I thought CMHC is determination to assistance us, and they privation to marque affordable housing," How said. "What a knucklehead."

An ongoing contented passim years of the exertion process, helium said, has been the mode the Crown corp calculates affordable rent arsenic it delivers national lodging programs.

Rental information 'bogus'

Pinecrest Housing plans to compression 56 units into the school's sprawling footprint, charging affordable rent for fractional and marketplace rent for the rest.

According to How, the occurrence of any application for a CMHC indebtedness hinges connected whether the bureau believes it volition get its wealth back.

The fiscal sustainability CMHC wants to see, helium said, indispensable beryllium imaginable with each affordable units priced astatine 20 per cent beneath market, which is the agency's interior benchmark for affordability.

How said the problem is the bureau uses in-house values to acceptable marketplace rent, and those values are overmuch little than what renters really wage successful Prince Edward County.

The CMHC numbers, helium said, are "bogus."

"CMHC is saying, 'Okay, this is the rent for your region.' And it's not an achievable number," How said. "It's surely not a fig that we tin spend to wage them back."

County keeps ain records

Accurate accusation astir the rental marketplace is hard to travel by successful agrarian municipalities, said Elis Ziegler, a region affordable lodging supervisor.

To code the problem, the region started collecting its ain rental information successful 2020.

Ziegler said astir organizations that measurement rent successful a fixed marketplace telephone landlords oregon browse online listings connected websites similar Facebook Marketplace and Kijiji.

Prince Edward County takes that attack a measurement further, with unit updating rental figures arsenic apartments travel disposable alternatively than taking a snapshot.

Ziegler said the region present has a clearer representation of what residents are really paying — and the existent fig is overmuch higher than what CMHC is reporting.

For example, the astir caller information collected by the municipality estimates the median rent for a one-bedroom flat successful Prince Edward County is $1,650 per month. The latest CMHC information estimates it astatine conscionable $1,200.

"CMHC information is consistently little than what's really being charged present for rent … which makes it intolerable for non-profits and backstage developers to physique affordable housing," Ziegler said.

Despite that reality, Ziegler said, CMHC refuses to judge the county's rent numbers and to explicate why.

In a written statement, a CMHC spokesperson said the bureau is assured successful its information and the methodology of its rental marketplace survey.

"Working intimately with municipalities is important for CMHC to nutrient the astir close and nonsubjective information connected rental housing," the connection read.

Bidding wars connected rental units

Ward 1 Coun. Phil St-Jean, who besides chairs the county's affordable lodging corporation, brought a solution to a March assembly gathering calling connected CMHC to amend its backing look to see "locally generated rental marketplace data."

"Because CMHC doesn't admit immoderate of our numbers, they don't admit that we are an country that is successful need," helium said successful an interview.

"There's this lack of data, and they're not consenting to judge that their information is flawed and they request to close it."

In Prince Edward County, St-Jean said, a deficiency of affordable lodging means the aging, tourism-dependent assemblage is pricing young work workers retired of town.

He believes the acquisition is happening in other agrarian communities crossed the province.

"[CMHC is] wholly underrepresenting the seriousness of the problem, peculiarly successful agrarian Ontario," helium said.

"Essentially [the CMHC is] saying you don't beryllium and you don't person a problem, erstwhile we intelligibly — from our ain probe and being the boots connected the crushed successful our assemblage — recognize that there's a immense occupation here."

If CMHC accepted section rental data, How said, it would assistance his efforts to unafraid a loan.

"If that [market rent] is raised conscionable a small spot … it volition interaction america greatly," helium said, adding the municipality's assistance connected the contented has been "fabulous."

Asked by the politician whether he'd see taking connected different conversion, How's effect was a definitive no.

"Yes, it makes sense, yes I deliberation it's easy convertible, and yes, it would beryllium a fabulous building," helium said. "But, [we're] not getting immoderate assistance doing this one."