There truly is no quick fix for homelessness in Chatham-Kent.
That is unless you have someone arrive with very, very deep pockets and a willingness to not maximize their returns.
What we don’t need is seeing more people put out on the street. That’s especially the case where people are long-term tenants, living on fixed income.
It could happen at two apartment buildings on Taylor Avenue in Chatham. Foundation Capital owns the sites and wants to renovate to alter the size of the units, turning 42 multi-bedroom units into 70 micro bachelor units.
The idea looks great on paper – add affordable apartments to Chatham-Kent’s housing inventory. Unfortunately, in this instance, adding 28 micro bachelor units would come at the expense of the people living there – the ones who currently have a home.
For something like this to work for all parties involved, a developer would need to do one of two things. First, erect a new apartment building or renovate an existing vacant building, to house the people currently living at the Taylor Avenue buildings at their current rental rates. Or renovate the hypothetical vacant building to house the micro bachelor units.
Either way, that’s an expensive endeavour for the developer.
But it would keep C-K citizens housed while adding to our housing inventory.
Foundation Capitol is not doing anything illegal here. Some might call the actions heavy handed and darned inconsiderate of the people living in the Taylor Avenue apartments, but they’re going to the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) over this.
It’s sad the municipality is not opposing the move. It’s even sadder the decision to capitulate and abandon the residents of 43 and 49 Taylor Ave. at the OLT hearing was done behind closed doors, and no information on the decision to do so has so far been forthcoming.
There’s an old saying of, “Is this the hill you want to die on?” It asks if the fight is worth it, regardless of the odds.
In this case, we believe it is. But C-K’s legal team has abandoned the field before the battle.
