What stood as a popular entertainment destination in its early days is being restored into affordable housing units for those who need it most.

Located at 250 Parkdale Avenue North, George and Mary’s Tavern was a popular banquet hall, with entertainment on the lower level and affordable apartments above. Over the years, however, the building had been neglected.

The conditions of the building have deteriorated, becoming infested with mould, bed bugs, peeling paint and leaking roofs. Despite these conditions, some saw it as their only resort for affordable living spaces amidst the city’s affordable housing crisis.

Indwell, a Christian charity that creates affordable housing communities and supports people seeking wellness and belonging, purchased the worn down building last fall with plans to build 60 single housing units.

The project plans to have the structure of the three-storey building to remain intact, while a portion will be demolished and rebuilt accordingly. The main level will see a commercial space that will include a convenience store and pharmacy, while the apartments will be restored and converted into approximately 24-square metre apartment units.

“There’s something really special about coming into a community and finding a building that’s already part of that community and already has a history there, and revitalizing it,” said Naomi Biesheuvel, administration coordinator at Indwell. “So a place like George and Mary’s… to be able to step in and start caring is an exciting way to participate in the community instead of coming in with a brand new plan. There is something incredibly exciting in taking this shell of a place and helping to transform it into something that will be full of life and hopefully a lot of happiness too.”

"There is something incredibly exciting in taking this shell of a place and helping to transform it into something that will be full of life and hopefully a lot of happiness too."
Naomi Biesheuvel,
Administration coordinator at Indwell

With affordable housing projects completed across eastern Hamilton and several more in tow, including the revitalization of George and Mary’s located in the McQuesten neighbourhood, Indwell is working diligently to provide hope and homes for those who need it most.

According to a 2012 profile on the area from Hamilton’s Social Planning and Research Council, the McQuesten neighbourhood is indicated to have much higher poverty rates than average for the city as a whole. Approximately 43 per cent of McQuesten neighbourhood households are living in unaffordable rental units by tenure type.

“Affordable housing is indeed in a crisis mode. We have way too many people waiting to obtain subsidized housing with too few available places,” said Patricia Reid, a long-time McQuesten resident and neighbourhood volunteer. “Indwell’s project will make a very small dent into the overall crisis, but at least it is a dent. Their properties are geared toward some of the most vulnerable peoples that are usually shunted aside by our society.”

According to the Hamilton Community Foundation, the cost of buying a home in Hamilton has spiked over 88.3 per cent over the past 10 years. A major factor in this surge is a drop in vacancy rates, which from 2013 to 2015, fell to 1.8 per cent from 3.4 per cent, contributing to costly rents across the city. In 2012, a report from the McMaster-Community Poverty Initiative discovered a 21-year gap in life expectancy between residents of the poorest and those of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in Hamilton.

“There are lots of good things happening in Hamilton in terms of renewal,” said Terry Cooke, chief executive officer of the Hamilton Community Foundation, a major funder of this project. “But if we fail to build mixed income communities and affordable housing opportunities, ultimately we will follow… a path of social breakdown, social isolation, much more costlier outcomes in terms of incarceration or educational outcomes, poor health outcomes, which is the clearest measure in Hamilton and in Canada of what happens when you leave people behind, so I think it’s critical [to invest in jobs and affordable housing].”

Indwell’s revitalization of George and Mary’s Tavern is set to be completed in 2019 and is currently in the early stages of demolition.

By: Rob Hardy

There has been growing interest during the past decade in redefining Hamilton to attract investors and make it a great place to live. Rising housing prices in Toronto have led some people to believe that Hamilton is a good alternative. This may be the case for certain home buyers, but many have begun spilling into the city to escape the GTA’s cost of living rather than being attracted by the relative value.

For those who don’t know, the Hamilton Spectator recently reported that the Hamilton-Burlington real estate market underwent a 19.8 per cent price jump over the past year, marking the biggest gains in the entire country. The numbers in just Hamilton are even higher at 23 per cent with another 13 per cent increase expected the following year. Given this, what are the implications of house prices going up by a predicted $58,000 in the next year?

Hamilton, being so much smaller than Toronto, was previously purported to be a smart location to settle down for McMaster students about to graduate and look for their first job. Now that its cost of living is quickly catching up, this narrative no longer applies. Despite that, downtown Hamilton is still dwarfed many times over compared with Toronto in terms of size, available services and things to do.

West Harbour Go Transit service and light rail transit are cited as two reasons for this inflation but neither is running yet, and LRT is still in some danger of being scrapped given the persistent opposition. For those without a car, commuting from Hamilton to Toronto on public transit can take up to two hours each way unless you live right by the Hunter Street Go station or work close to Union Station. Otherwise, longer treks on the HSR and further connections on the TTC easily lengthen your commute.

But this problem is really about something so much larger than what is going on in this region. Canada has become a prohibitively expensive nation to live in for at least the past 10 years. The basic need of a home has been allowed to become a market for people to invest in and make money. The result of the market recently has created a two-tier system where a privileged group is allowed to exploit those who cannot afford to become homeowners. While some get rich, the rest, unable to realistically match housing increases with stagnant wages, have been set up to fail.

When my parents, as recent immigrants, bought a home by Gage Park in 1972, it cost $19,500 for a three-storey house with a basement. But the key point is that back then it only took a few years to pay off a mortgage. In today’s world, newly arrived immigrants would find a very different country, one where mortgages can take half your life to pay off. Homeownership has gone from offering security to being a long sentence of debt servitude.

This is the difference between what something should cost and what is actually charged. Canada, being the second largest country in the world with one of the lowest population densities on the planet, has vast tracts of land on which to build communities even if we exclude our territories to the north. We have so many resources at our disposal, yet it is clear that we lack the political will to make sure that all people have decent, affordable housing. Instead, we encourage lifestyles that urge us to make large purchases so that these can be taxed with fees and surcharges. Frugal and minimalist living is not a Canadian concept.

Regardless of differing opinions about how we have gotten to this point, it should be clear that this has become an unsustainable way of life. Something is wrong when students with multiple degrees are feeling anxiety about where they will live. Concerns about whether they will ever be able to afford a decent house, how much it will cost them and the stress surrounding societal status based on economic success and failure is depressing. And all this comes with a ticking clock: wait too long and it may become impossible to realize that dream of homeownership.

Hamilton is currently in a state of change. Since property costs are relatively low compared to neighbouring cities, developers and entrepreneurs have been looking to Hamilton to open trendy cafes and restaurants or to build luxury condos. As positive as this kind of prosperity can be for the city, there is a grim reality behind the shiny facades.

The cost of buying a home in Hamilton has spiked over 88.3 per cent over the past ten years. With that, the city has seen the cost of rental units shoot up more than any other city within Ontario in this past year alone, making it difficult to find adequate housing for those in need.

One of the factors to the rental surge, besides the continued gentrification, is a drop in vacancy rates. From 2013 to 2015, vacancy rates fell to 1.8 per cent from 3.4 per cent, forcing rental costs to skyrocket and lowering the means for affordable housing projects that are in high demand across the city.

The spike of the cost of living in Hamilton and the lack of affordable housing projects, including emergency homeless shelters or women’s shelters, see more people and families being put onto waiting lists for subsidized housing, and more people in emergency shelters staying longer with nowhere to go. Today, approximately 5,700 households in Hamilton are on a waiting list for subsidized housing.

One community in particular has been facing the effects of this resurgence for years. The Beasley neighbourhood is located in central downtown and bound by four major streets that have arguably seen the most gentrification in the city, including James St N and Main St W. In a 2012 report published by the city’s Social Planning and Research council, it was noted that poverty rates in Beasley are three times higher than the average for the city, with nearly six in ten residents living below the poverty line.

“What does affordable housing mean to Hamilton? It means that we as a city are able to continue on with this value we have, which is that if you live here, you’re part of the community,” said Matt Thomson, a Beasley neighbourhood resident. “The city is not about creating wealth strictly through the speculation of housing, but rather everyone should have the chance to participate, and when you have to move far away from where you’re grounded, that’s not what we’re about.”

A 2012 report from the McMaster-Community Poverty Initiative found a 21-year gap in life expectancy between residents of the poorest neighbourhood and those of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in Hamilton. Sara Mayo, a social planner at the Social Planning and Research Council, noted that investing in affordable housing would mean massive improvement for people’s health.

“The sort of low-level chronic stress that comes from things like not knowing if your landlord is going to kick you out or not knowing how you’re going to make next month’s rent has shown to be very harmful to people’s health,” said Mayo. “One high-stress event is something you can bounce back from and something that your body can take, but that low-level chronic stress is something that has really big impacts on people’s brains and on their physical health.”

The provincial government currently has a long-term affordable housing strategy in place that was updated in March. The plan sees $178 million of investment in affordable housing projects, specifically for survivors of domestic abuse, supportive households and homelessness initiatives over the course of the next three years.

“[Fixing the issue is] a complex question that often has very simple answers. You invest in affordable housing,” noted Thomson. “What that looks like is going to depend on what you’re expecting your outcome to be, but it’s about building units, and it’s about fixing the units that we have, and it’s about enabling and equipping people with really cool tools to try out new ways of keeping housing affordable, so that people can then work towards the bigger and better things in their lives.”

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By: Crystal Lobo

Ted McMeekin, Ontario’s Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and MPP for Ancaster- Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale, announced an updated Affordable Housing Strategy on March 14. This multi-faceted strategy involves an investment of $178 million across Ontario over the span of three years. It declared the construction of up to 1,500 new affordable housing units. Additionally, the announcement mentioned funding for the Community Homelessness Prevention Initiative. Furthermore, building frameworks for portable housing benefit and Supportive Housing Policy were also mentioned.

This funding from the provincial government is a positive step towards helping homeless Hamiltonians according to Mayor Fred Eisenberger.

“There are a lot of positives here that talk about many of the things that municipalities have been asking for, which is long-term care, a focus on poverty and homelessness, as well as providing benefits to residents that are having problems in terms of affordability,” said Eisenberger.

The mayor cites housing and homelessness as a significant issue in the community of Hamilton. Eisenberger acknowledges that homelessness impedes many Hamiltonians from leading stable lives and successfully providing for their families. He states that the effort in combatting this issue must be collective.

“This is a community-wide issue and resolving this issue I think is a collective responsibility for all of us. To do that we would be making some significant investments in our human capital.”

Currently, there are 6,000 people on the wait list for affordable housing in the city. Each affordable housing unit costs $200,000 to build from scratch. As such, Hamilton requires more resources than those provided by this announcement from the provincial government.

“This is a community-wide issue and resolving this issue I think is a collective responsibility for all of us."

“The amount of money they set aside here on the provincial level just kind of scratches the surface in terms of the greater need,” said Eisenberger.

Moreover, the announcement declared that developing Indigenous housing strategies in conjunction with Indigenous communities would be a priority.

“I think that's going to be a provincially-led initiative that we're certainly going to be partnering on,” said Eisenberger. He added that along with Indigenous communities, immigrants and Syrians who are new to the city will be included in the affordable housing strategy in Hamilton.

McMeekin hopes to pass the legislation for inclusionary zoning before June 9, when the provincial legislature closes for the summer. This mandate would require new construction projects to include affordable housing for people with low or moderate earnings. Eisenberger believes it is a positive step for the province and this city. However, he acknowledges that implementing inclusionary zoning will not be a simple task.

“Inclusionary zoning really has to be supported by and mandated by the city and the developing community. There's going to be a need to have some pretty intense focused discussions about how we actually achieve that so that we get the benefit of additional housing units,” said Eisenberger.

Photo Credit: Construction Specifications Canada

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Two thirds of the way through the school year, the last thing on many students’ minds is their living situation. Between midterms, final exams and group meetings, students, especially those in residence, begin to see their rooms as a place to get a few hours of sleep before racing through another day. Unfortunately, some residence rooms are dealing with new, unwanted roommates.

For the past few months, Whidden Hall, a residence in the North Quad of campus, has been contending with an outbreak of bedbugs. Once associated with squalor, bedbugs have become a common pest in recent years, with discoveries of their presence in hotels, movie theatres and on public transit.

For this reason, Kevin Beatty, McMaster’s Director of Housing and Conference Services, is reluctant to call the recent outbreak a problem. “We typically see bedbugs over the course of the year. It's not uncommon to see them. But what is uncommon in this situation is that there seems to be a bit of a flare-up,” he said. He added that while the current bout has been present in Whidden for a few months, the treatment plan was put in place fairly soon after. “We have a comprehensive bedbug response plan in residence,” he said.

According to Beatty, all Community Advisors in residence are trained in how to deal with the reporting of bedbugs. Within 24 hours of a report being issued, pest control is brought in. “If the pest control company has something called proof of pests, so an actual bedbug or some trace that it exists, then they would take the next steps which would be working with the students to execute the treatment plan.”

This treatment plan involves students washing their bed sheets, clothing and other personal effects in biodegradable plastic bags, which help heat the objects in the washing machine, a process that kills the bedbugs. Pest control also treats the room in question, and comes in 14 days later to re-treat it.

While the initial reaction to the discovery of bugs may be to move to a different location, Beatty explained that this is not an ideal procedure. He said that if students are not present in their environment, the bugs will remain inactive. “The other reason is that you don't want people to move because one of the challenging aspects of bedbugs is that they're distributed in social networks ... that's why we advise students not to go home and why we don't move them.”

At the time that spoke with Beatty, the flare-up was isolated in Whidden. Since then, reports suggest the issue has spread to Bates Residence in the University’s West Quad, but Beatty could not be reached for further comment.

“We typically see bedbugs over the course of the year ... But what is uncommon in this situation is that there seems to be a bit of a flare-up."

For his part, Beatty remains optimistic about the “flare-up” being taken care of quickly and without fanfare. “We're lucky that residence students are quick to identify which allows us to be quick to respond,” he said.

Photo Credit: Jon White/ Photo Editor

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By: Jennifer La Grassa

Searching for a decent student house to live in within the McMaster area is like searching for a needle in a haystack — you’ll simply never find it, or by the time you do it turns out that the needle belongs to someone else. Most of the student-rented houses in Hamilton have unmaintained, cookie cutter interiors that attempt to cram eight to ten students in what should comfortably fit four people at most. A prominent issue among most of the student-rented houses is that they’re old and poorly maintained. Most of them seem just about ready to collapse in on themselves and appear more run-down than they should. As a landlord, if you don’t have the money or the time to upkeep the houses that you rent, then you shouldn’t be in the business. Being a post-secondary student that lives away from home is stressful enough, let alone having to live in a house that feels like the farthest thing from a “home.”

If health and safety officials were to actually take the time to inspect all the houses that students are presented to live in, the majority of them would have to undergo serious renovations. Safety features such as smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, a ventilation fan above the stove, and proper locks on the front door are rare to come across. Another alarming commonality among houses are those whose front and back doors open up into a bedroom. Tenants shouldn’t fall asleep at night fearing that someone will knock on their front door or break into their bedroom. As for basement rooms, if there isn’t a standardized window and properly insulated walls, no human being should be expected to actually rent it. I realize the goal of a landlord may simply be to maximize their profit, but they need to stop building bedrooms out of living spaces.

During my house-hunting adventures at the beginning of this year, landlords kept insisting that their house would “go fast” and attempted to rush my housemates and me into a decision. If it’s three weeks into the New Year and your house is still on the market, then it clearly hasn’t gone fast and in that case others might be seeing an issue that we have overlooked. Another landlord requested that we make her “an offer” on the rent of the house. Remarks such as these that make me feel like landlords believe they can take advantage of students by making them bargain for the rental of a subpar house.

Just because we’re students doesn’t mean that we don’t deserve a decent place to live in. I strongly feel that if funds were available, the McMaster Off-Campus Resource Centre should expand and work with city officials and the university to better the housing options presented to students. Having more apartment buildings near campus that could house students or even just enhancing the ways in which student houses are managed would both be ideal solutions. These could encourage more students to live away from home and help those that have to live away feel more comfortable with their new surroundings.

Your horror stories (as gathered from a public Silhouette poll)

“My friends and I were house hunting last January...One of the houses we looked at literally looked like a murder could have taken place there. The house was pretty dark and the landlord seemed persistent about so many things. At the end of the tour, we told him we would get back to him about the house since we were looking for an eight month lease rather than 12 months like he was asking for. It was actually scary how demanding and annoying he was being about how he didn’t want to wait and how quickly he would be able to get documents ready.”

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“Landlord finished the tour of the house with “and here’s where my mother died,” then proceeded to stare into my very soul for a good minute and a half. I excused myself and said I needed to look at a few more places that day; she replied with a frown and said that she wished that young adults were more respectful these days while slamming the door in my face.”

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“Pretty sure we saw a crack pipe casually lying on the kitchen counter at a six-bedroom house on Stroud.”

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“One of the first houses I ever saw during my house hunting experience is one that [still] scars me...In order to enter the hobbit hole bedroom you had to crouch through a narrow hallway until you made your way into a tiny room that barely held a bed and a desk. I think Harry Potter had a better crib than that!”

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“ When we toured [the apartment], everything seemed fine -- it was clean, well-lit, no visible signs of infestation. When we moved our things in in August, the super told us that the previous tenants had ripped the baseboards out, then gave me a roach motel and left. That night, it became apparent that they’d ripped up the baseboards to try and get at the roach nests – the apartment was infested, and they were crawling behind and beneath every surface. There was a hole in the bathroom tile that went to the outside, taped over with a tarp-- we were on the 11th floor! We ended up breaking our lease and moving to another apartment, but six months on I still break into a cold sweat when I see a shadow or a bit of fluff from the corner of my eye and mistake it for a roach. 0/10 do not recommend.”

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“ HOUSE WAS SH!T.”

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Photo Credit: Kevin Bauman

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By: Rafik El Werfalli

Mostacci suggests that any general message for students is to, “Be responsible and never disable the smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms.” According to new legislation that came into effect in 2013, Bill 77, the Hawkins-Gignac Act, it is mandatory that all homes with fuel burning appliances be equipped with carbon monoxide alarms.

Mostacci mentioned that some of the signs of carbon monoxide poisoning are difficult to recognize. Some of these symptoms include feeling lethargic, confused and having flu like symptoms. “It is really important to recognize the symptoms of carbon monoxide” he said. If the carbon monoxide alarm is going off and you are experiencing these symptoms, Mostacci advised students to keep the windows shut, leave the house and to call 911.

Never go back into the house in search for items. “Items can be replaced. Lives cannot,” Mostacci said.

 

Have a working smoke alarm, and carbon monoxide monitor in your home at all times.

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Keep a fire extinguisher in a convenient location in the house.

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Never leave anything on the stove unattended. If a fire ignites in the pot use a lid to cover it and never carry it outside.

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Do not place extension cables near/under flammable material such as carpets.

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Develop a plan with housemates for an escape route if a fire breaks out.

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A little over three years ago, I excitedly moved into my student house. I predicted it would soon become the backdrop of my soon-to-be reality TV-worthy student life, but instead I was welcomed into my new home with a slew of landlord upsets. With everything from bathroom leaks, to broken decks, to a mysterious older man who used to enter our home at night to fix the plumbing (yes, this was as terrifying as it sounds), at times my student house was more of a problem than a personal oasis.

At the time, I didn’t realize that all of these issues were at the fault of my landlord, since he often asserted his authority in a way that made myself and my housemates feel responsible.

We are definitely not the only students to be in a situation like this. Tenants of Westdale and Ainsliewood homes have often fallen victim to landlord traps that place them in uncomfortable and unlawful positions. In an effort to combat this problem, the MSU’s Student Community Support Network has launched the #MacLivesHere campaign, a Twitter and recently MUSC-centric campaign that will help students become better acquainted with leasing homes and give them an opportunity to share their grievances.

The #MacLivesHere campaign is, in theory, a great idea. So many students get into signing leases without knowing all their rights, and this has led to complications in the past where students end up getting the short end of a deal that is supposed to be in their favour.

The only unfortunate part of the campaign is that it is run by a somewhat overshadowed MSU service, the SCSN.

The MSU is a big organization. It is comprised of both large and small services, with some getting more attention than others. This structure is something expected, but it also begs the question, how necessary are all of our services, and can our money be better used serving groups with the power to make campaigns noticed and accessible?

The SCSN is a service that is meant to help students build positive relationships with the Hamilton community. Unfortunately, even though their aim is noble, some of their efforts and campaigns often get overlooked when larger groups take center stage. It could be a valuable and well-used service for students, but when larger promotions sidestep its actions, the group just appears to be another accessory of the MSU that helps keen students piggyback on a service to work their way towards a future full-time job with the Union.

As a person who is more informed about campus events and services than most, I still don’t know all that much about the SCSN. It is one of multiple MSU services that passes just enough under the radar that very few seem to be checking up on them — this is a disservice both to them and the student body.

Perhaps its time to take a good look at our services and decide which ones are worth our time, and figure out how we can better use our resources to make those shine. It would be great to see more students exposed to the Mac Lives Here campaign, but as far as many students are concerned, SCSN hasn’t even signed a lease.

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Last April, my housemates and I backed out of a potentially exploitative and disastrous lease. We have the tenants at the time to thank for reaching out to inform us of their landlord’s undeniably shady behaviour. Many students aren’t so lucky.

On Sept. 6, a story was shared on Spotted at Mac about a landlord who took two months of rent but never responded when the student wanted to move in. More students commented about their own experiences with this particular landlord, urging others to avoid renting from them.

This landlord is only one of many who will manipulate and deceive students to rent their rooms. The students are then stuck in a twelve or, if they’re lucky, eight-month long contract. Some rooms and houses don’t meet the safety standards, or aren’t up to code by Ontario rental guidelines, but are being rented out anyway due to a lack of resources, education and better options.

When the time comes to rent a place near campus, students find themselves too overwhelmed by the process of house-hunting, and lacking guidance, they often make uninformed decisions. Houses go quickly and potential landlords warn that they have another group interested in the house so they better act fast.

While some find the ads on Kijiji and Craigslist, others take the more cautious route of looking at McMaster’s Off Campus Resource page. Unfortunately, it does not appear as though the university takes any steps to regulate and verify the ads posted on their page, or the contracts that the landlord will ask the university’s students to sign.

It is the university’s responsibility, in some capacity, to regulate the landlords who are renting to students, especially in the vicinity of campus. Living situations for students who rent are of paramount importance to their health, both physical and mental, as well as their success in school.

Although the Off-Campus Resource Centre exists, and I would recommend that anyone who has renting troubles visit them for advice, it is not enough. The university allows landlords to place room ads on their website, giving these landlords the privilege of the legitimacy that comes from being connected to the McMaster website. If landlords benefit from this relationship, it should also come with greater responsibility and stricter rules.

In addition to asking more from the landlords, the Off-Campus Resource Centre should also focus on outreaching to students, educating them on the specifics of renting, the illegalities that often sneak their way into year-long contracts, and the dangers of many potential residences that are being rented out.

Ultimately, McMaster has a responsibility to its students to ensure that things it affiliates itself with are safe and legal. Although students can post their renting horror stories on social media and hope it reaches their peers, it is not our sole responsibility to make sure we’re not exploited and manipulated by landlords.

Whether you just moved on, have been living in your house for a while, or are still looking for a place to call your own for the next few years, don’t forget that your safety and health comes first. Landlords aren’t allowed to bully you into accepting lesser conditions, and while pursuing legal action can be a hassle, it helps you and future tenants create better conditions for McMaster students.