By Kendall Worth
Over the years, I have written extensively about the challenge of finding affordable housing faced by people in my community. By ‘my community’, I mean people living in poverty, usually on Income Assistance, and often with various disabilities and mental health issues. You can follow these links to my articles on the housing crisis in general and specifically on homelessness.
In today’s BLOG, I will not be providing an update on the housing issue, but I do want to explore one specific dimension of affordable housing: social isolation.
To help me in this exploration, I am going to rely on a First Voice from my community, who wishes to remain anonymous but for the purpose of my BLOG has agreed to the pseudonym “Clear”.
Clear’s Story:
Back in 2023, as the housing crisis was exploding in Nova Scotia, I wrote in this BLOG about the struggles of people coming together on Washmill Lake Drive to share apartments just to be able to survive in the current economy. And these were people with jobs – sometimes more than one job – who were struggling to get by.
The situation was ever more dire for people on Income Assistance – who had much lower incomes – and some of whom had mental health or anxiety issues that made sharing small residential spaces with others a problem.
Clear was one of those people living on Washmill Lake Drive when it was more affordable. But she had to move out due to the skyrocketing costs. Today she would not even qualify for the rent subsidy even if she had stayed. The going rent for those units is probably well over $2,000 a month – which is beyond the threshold for the subsidy program.
Today, Clear receives the $1,022 Standard Household rate, plus the $324 Disability Supplement. Economists tell us that the housing expenditure for any household should be no more than 30% of total income, which in Clear’s case would be $403. In the current market, that is clearly impossible. Even with an additional rent subsidy of $300, that does not bring Clear’s income up to the current level of affordable rents. (And it is important to note that not everyone qualifies for rent subsidies in Nova Scotia.)
In the real world, Clear now pays $1,000 for rent. Which leaves her with $646 to cover her NS Power bill ($100) and cell phone ($50 after Special Needs Telephone Allowance), leaving her with $464 for groceries, personal hygiene products, etc. Inflation being the way it is these days, $464 a month does not go very far.
Building Design and Social Isolation
One of the reasons the costs of these buildings are so high
is that they include various facilities and amenities beyond the basing housing
component, such as -
- a common room for residents;
- a fitness center and swimming pool;
- social events hosted by the landlord such as a summer BBQ and Christmas party.
These provide important socializing opportunities for residents, which are generally not available in more basic, “affordable” buildings.
Clear explained that at one point in her life, she did live in a building that had all of the above facilities. But today’s financial realities mean that this is no longer possible, - and the result for her has been a much more socially isolated life.
This has been one of the impacts of the housing crisis – the
loss of socializing opportunities for people in my community. The lack of
residential-based facilities such as common rooms and gyms means that there are
few if any opportunities to connect with neighbours and develop friendships. Many
First Voices I speak with will say that they have no friends living in their
apartment building. And there are simply
not spaces or activities for meeting people and building new relationships.
To some extent, this is the result of the physical design of
the buildings. To keep costs low, common spaces and facilities are not built
into the original building design. This obliges us to find alternative
solutions to engage socially and build relationships. Indeed, I first discussed
the idea of neighbourhood or block parties in this 2023 BLOG, where
I made the case for residents to take the initiative to organize social
gatherings which are welcoming to all but still respect everyone's privacy.
But this is easier said than done. One must be mindful of
the many sensitivities around organizing residents in affordable housing, - not
least of all the need to respect personal boundaries, as I have written about before.
Simply walking around an apartment building knocking on strangers' doors is NOT
an appropriate approach, because every resident has the right to privacy and to
decide when, where, and how they wish to meet other people.
Nonetheless, we should consider the following questions:
- What are the benefits of neighbours getting to know one another in a respectful and organized way?
- How could stronger neighbour-to-neighbour relationships help reduce social isolation, improve safety, and create a greater sense of community within apartment buildings?
- How to help the larger community understand the social realities faced by many of those I advocate for through my BLOG?
The fact that affordable housing needs to be MORE than just a
roof over one’s head has been long understood. I wrote about some of the issues
related to “supportive housing” in this BLOG here. And while many who promote supportive housing
are focused on support services related to health or counselling, I am making
the case that we also need to consider how best to deal with social isolation.
Some Closing Reflections from Clear:
While talking with Clear for this BLOG, she shared how she
had been obliged to leave full-time employment 12 years ago, due to a mental
health breakdown. Since then, she has been surviving on Income Assistance.
She had fond memories of the time spent with friends and
neighbours in shared spaces and facilities in her old building, and was an
active member of the building Book Club which used to meet regularly. Moving to
a building with no social facilities or activities was a big adjustment for her.
Her growing sense of social isolation reminded me of the BLOG I wrote
about how many IA recipients slip slowly into social isolation and eventually
start to consider themselves social introverts.
The bottom line would appear to be that if the government is
not willing to build affordable buildings with common spaces, then the tenants
will need to self-organize to provide alternative opportunities for social
engagement. Either way, a different and better system of Social Housing needs
to be figured out.
Kendall Worth is an award-winning anti-poverty activist
who lives with disabilities and tries to make ends meet on income assistance
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