THUNDER BAY — Summer Stevenson wants to redefine affordable housing — based on what people can actually afford.
Project manager for the city's housing accelerator fund program — an initiative aimed at building over 1,600 new units in Thunder Bay by February 2027 — Stevenson is proposing changes to the definition of “affordable” housing, as it relates to a specific funding stream.
The affordable rental housing fund is available to not-for-profits to create affordable housing for low-to-moderate income households.
Right now, the program is using a definition of “affordable” that is based on the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s average market rent, said Stevenson. Affordable, she said, currently means a unit that is no more than 80 per cent of the cost of the city’s average market rent for the same type of space.
The proposed change would effectively do away with that definition, for the affordable rental housing fund’s purposes, replacing it with one that uses gross annual household income — specifically that an affordable unit is one that costs (including rent and utilities) 30 per cent or less of one’s household income.
“We know that rents are increasing at a higher rate than salaries are,” Stevenson said.
“If we look at that year over year, if rents continue to increase and we don't do the same thing with rent or household incomes, we're going to meet a point where 80 per cent of average market rent really doesn't mean affordable.”
The Mayor’s Taskforce on Building More Homes advisory committee is scheduled to receive Stevenson's report on Wednesday.
Of the 1,600 new units the city aims to build, just over 20.5 per cent of them have to be considered affordable, according to the report. The proposed 30-per-cent-of- income-or-less definition would apply to units for renters with low to moderate incomes only — low incomes are those between $19,000 and $35,300 per year, and moderate incomes are $44,000 to $64,700 per year — all in 2023 dollars, Stevenson said.
If the change is adopted, it would effectively mean in order to qualify for the affordable rental housing fund, a not-for-profit organization would have to ensure that any build would have at least 30 per cent of its units be “affordable” under the new definition, Stevenson said.
The fund’s first intake window using the 80-per-cent-of-the-market-rate criteria ran during June and July 2024, Stevenson said, and the city awarded funding to six projects.
“These changes are recommended now because we need to ensure that we're continuing to meet the needs of low-and-moderate-income households in Thunder Bay,” Stevenson said, adding that the city is also working on a housing needs assessment, which is a requirement of the housing accelerator fund and potential future federal funding streams.
“When you start to add all of these different variables, something like average market rent makes that really, really complicated,” she continued.
“Because we're just looking at whatever the market is saying, which we know … really since the pandemic is that we've been seeing this huge increase in rents, year over year, that really isn't being matched at the household income level.”
The proposed changes — using household income to define affordable — means using metrics that are more “futureproof,” Stevenson said.
The mayor’s taskforce committee is scheduled to discuss the proposed changes this week. If the members agree to the recommendation, that will go into a report reviewing the overall affordable rental housing funding program, Stevenson said.
That report, she added, is scheduled to be submitted to committee of the whole in June; that’s when Stevenson said she expects council to deliberate any proposed changes.
“I think it's really important … for everyone to think about what more affordable housing might mean for both their friends, their family and their community,” she said.
“It's really important that we expand that definition, and we think about that 30 per cent of our gross household income because it's important that everybody across all income spectrums has a safe and affordable place to live.”
