this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2025
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β€˜Not in my backyard’ pushback blocking much-needed affordable housing, experts say (www.thecanadianpressnews.ca)
submitted 1 week ago by NightOwl to c/canada
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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago (6 children)

It's tough. My inner progressive is "fuck those NIMBYs, people need affordable housing!" But I also bike past two different sets of affordable housing twice a week for soccer.

One is near our soccer field and playground. The playground is mostly kid free these days as there are all sorts of needles and other paraphanalia strewn about. Meanwhile, there are usually people smoking hard drugs right by the pitches. Most of us don't leave our bikes at the parking rack as you can come back to a stripped bike or having had the spokes kicked, presumably as punishment for locking our bikes.

The other one is a little out of the way of most people. The street by it is still littered with refuse and drug paraphanalia and for some reason, they seem to occasionally move rocks into the street (as I painfully learned one day when not paying enough attention.)

If I had kids, I'm not sure I'd want that around my kids either. I know people who live in the same area as one, in what is otherwise a nice part of town. Some of the girls are afraid to go outside alone at night in their own neighbourhoods, and frankly I don't blame them. I'm a scaryish looking dude and keep my head on a swivel, headphones off whenever I visit.

I don't know what the answer is but I don't blame the NIMBYs for feeling like they do.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I don't think you have jumped to conclusive outrage enough to be posting on Lemmy

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

My bad! Next time I will end my thought by deciding one of the two (NIMBYs or those needing affordable housing) should be eradicated.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This is a lopsided take. NIMBY isn't aimed at just affordable housing or section 8 - it's aimed at ANY development, thus limiting the housing supply. It also targets any effort to change zoning. We need more medium density housing. Something like 90% of the country is R1 single family detached which is the worst thing for the environment ever.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Oh totally agree, there's a lot of NIMBY shit I hate and with which I vehemently disagree. I should have clarified, I'm just talking about social assistance housing or whatever the appropriate term is.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

How about just more housing till the supply pressure makes it affordable? πŸ€”

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

They tried that in my city and now we are left with a bunch of empty still unaffordable and badly built apartment buildings

[–] isVeryLoud 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You have a very balanced take, it's refreshing.

Poverty and drug addiction is a very difficult problem I believe can be tackled by UBI and safe injection centres together.

I have the same gripes about the Montreal Metro, I think it's unsafe outside of commute hours because of the drug users and homeless people who take shelter within. It's not their fault, it's a societal problem, but the end result nonetheless is that people get assaulted frequently on the metro.

Being poor is expensive, both for the individual and for society, and studies show that if you give someone $200, they'll spend it on food and drugs. If you house someone, they'll feel like they have no autonomy and go back to the streets. If you give them $25k a year with no strings attached, most will try to find housing they like, buy food they like and solve their addiction and mental health issues, and go on to live fulfilling lives.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/basic-income-gives-money-without-strings-heres-how-people-spend-it/

And, best of all, if done and funded correctly, employers get to save $25k a year on employee paychecks as it'll be presumably garnered off of corporate taxes for all of society to enjoy. Unfortunately, companies are "people" and would protest against this as it'll end up being slightly more expensive in the short term.

Pushing poor people away just makes them someone else's problem.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Thanks! I go back and forth on UBI... If nothing were to change and you could direct it entirely to the homeless etc, probably the easiest policy answer in a strictly "solving this problem" sense.

But, the second order effects are what kind of throws me. I've known a good number of stoner/harder slackers. I wonder how many people scrubbing toilets and floors or dealing with psychos late night at McDonalds wouldn't swap their job for a guaranteed $25K a year (or whatever it ended up being for basic necessities, noteworthy most studies only look at giving a small amount of money, 1K etc.) And we'll ignore any inflationary pressures at the bottom end of the market) I think of my buddy from high school who is still bagging groceries, living in his parents basement essentially waiting for them to die and then he'll inherit the house. Breaks my heart to watch but he'd be on that 25K in a heart beat. I can't imagine he's alone. So, at that point you either have to drastically increase the wage for almost every job (or suffer wage compression, which the middle class tends to hate) and eat a bunch of inflation.

I don't know what the answer is, I just know that UBI is one of those ones where I have difficulty seeing it being implemented and more difficulty not seeing it spiral into absolute sketch town.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

In my parents neighborhood, there was a plan on building 8 story buildings right next to single houses.

Off course we need higher density housing to reduce housing shortage... In this case, people fought back to keep the previous rule (4 story high max) and the old 2-story buildings were replaced by 4s ones. To recoup the loss, these appartments were made super high-end and are now empty because they can't sell.

All in all, I'm torn that i fought to keep a "gradual" increase in height, but also the promoter kind of didn't do this for the right reasons and would probably have created 8-story high end appartments...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I understand your point but I also live near low income housing and volunteer at another place closer to the downtown area. Certainly some of the buildings are rougher than others (I work near one directly downtown that is rough) but the other two you can hardly tell they're low income. There are plenty others I've seen that you honestly wouldn't know are supportive housing unless you went in/knew someone that lived there. There's one near my parents house that people were freaking out about before it got built and after 5 years it honestly hasn't made a change in the neighbourhood at all.

I don't know the answer either, but I think making a judgement that all low income housing attracts only people struggling with drug addiction or mental health is not quite right either.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Mixed income communities?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Ah so exactly what the NIMBYs are fighting against

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

They think only the poor people would want microunits? Maybe. Maybe some not-poor people would want them anyway.

Maybe the issue is they would assume, which is sad. I read about mixed income units in Germany, I think, where the units all looked similar so no one could tell anyone's income by their apartment. Maybe clothing and mannerisms might be different.

It's sad that we're conditioned against poor people and other races.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I don’t know the answer either, but I think making a judgement that all low income housing attracts only people struggling with drug addiction or mental health is not quite right either.

Oh you're absolutely right. But the ones that stand out in people's heads are the ones that are incredibly visible. There's a recovery house down my block, almost no one would know it exists if someone didn't tell you. BUT that also means that the people who are concerned about these places probably don't know or think of those ones.

Heck, a senior citizen I know lives in what would be a really nice socially supported building but, it is on arguably the worst street in Canada. You wouldn't know from the interior (or the exterior if you couldn't see the street) or most of her neighbours that I've met but she's also been in the hospital after being assaulted for her purse.

I think that's part of the hard part with socially supportive housing, if we can't or don't have the means to differentiate between the ones that are likely to bring serious issues and the ones that are going to be unobtrusive, the default position for most people will be fear and suspicion. Not that that's a solution but that's where the issue is.

[–] Dearche 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I think there's a serious issue of conflating affordable housing with low income housing. The two are different things. I mean, a two bedroom apartment that can be paid for from a single person's full time salary at minimum wage is different from an apartment meant for someone who can't hold a steady job.

People so often talk about the latter as the only form of affordable housing, when it's the former that's actually needed. So many people are in subsidized housing because it's either that, or something that's over $2k a month for a single bedroom or a condo that's half a million. There is almost nothing in between for most of Toronto, which is the real issue.

And all the problems with drug abuse and people causing so much local trouble is because they've lost purpose. Without housing that's of a decent price, it's no wonder that so many homeless have appeared and is causing trouble all over the city the moment the economy dipped. For lots of people, the moment they lose their income, they're too far over their heads to be able to stay at their current homes because they're so expensive. And how the hell is anybody supposed to get a job when they don't have a home to take a shower to get cleaned up for an interview?

Affordable housing is literally the first step to being able to live like a basic human being, and those NIMBYs are against such things. They're basically the same as all the things we complain about when it comes to the western oligarchs like Musk.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Fair, I could have been more precise in my wording. But from context, I think it's pretty clear I'm talking about what is more accurately called social or subsidized housing. (Low income is just anywhere poor.)

And the point is that subsidized housing for the most destitute comes with huge costs. Not being able to admit and somehow confront these costs is a serious issue that makes it all the harder.

I think about my buddy, a good progressive, lived here for decades. Kind of neighbourhood where we're proud of our supervised on street harm reduction unit. But no one wants to raise their kid somewhere where, upon getting to the playground, your toddler has to wait while daddy frantically checks the playground for needles and other paraphanalia.

I don't have an answer and we need solutions but at the same, ignoring reality endears us to no one. If you're right about affordable housing alleviating the need for subsidized housing, then whatever makes it easiest to make more affordable housing is crucial. Maybe we get more neighbourhoods on board with more affordable and less subsidized housing offers? Though that seems cruel to those who need it... Hence the whole dilemma...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

These boomers...

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

It's not just the boomers tho, a lot of people are so selfish lately.

For the past 10 years there has been a large field across from where I work. Not a nice bit of nature, just a crappy looking bit of lumpy grass a mowed a couple of times a year. About 5 years ago an investor bought the land and wanted to develop it.

They hired an architect that designed a stunning looking building, super modern, fully environmentally neutral in construction and in the future, with excellent insulation, heat pumps using the ground and solar on top. It looked beautiful as well, with a very interesting design and a lot of green. Part of the roof was to be a garden, not for people but just for plants. Plants had places to grow all over the building, which was designed to easily maintain the plants not to overgrow the building and not damage it. The intent was for commercial use of the building.

So the investors took their plans to the local council and they were super happy. It cleaned an unused bit of land, they would get income from the use of the building and attracting businesses is always a good thing. So they gave the permit and said go right ahead.

However as soon as the permit was published the local community went nuts. They organized and didn't want the developer to spoil their bit of land. They complained about all sorts of things, almost everything highly exaggerated or complete nonsense. Anyone that actually looked at the plans the architect made could see they really took a lot of things into account. But the local community organized, got everyone riled up, held protests, blanketed the area with flyers etc. This community is pretty mixed in terms of ages and such.

So the council pulled the permit and told the developer they couldn't do it. This led to the developer sueing the council and that's still in court, the developer invested millions to get to that point with support of the council. With the local community the way it is, the project isn't going to happen, so it will probably cost the council and thus the community a lot of money.

So with that canceled a new developer came around and said they wanted to use the plot to build housing. There is a huge shortage of housing in the area, so they got an immediate go. As predicted the community went apeshit again, not in my backyard and all that. The council was not amused and shut that shit down right away. Refusing housing isn't a thing they are willing to do, nor should they. Unless someone has a valid claim, like it being unsafe or having too big environmental impact or something, it's going to happen. The local community don't have shit and the developer did things like environmental impact studies, checked for archeology etc. The faces of the ringleaders was priceless when the council shut them down. This whole not in my backyard bullshit needs to stop and I'm happy the council did the right thing.

Construction started beginning of this year, so that shitty piece of grass is finally going to be useful. Other then for people's dogs to poop on that is.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

Other then for people's dogs to poop on that is.

Dog owners... Don't get me started!

But good to see some common sense. These cloens will never organize for anything else... But god forbid there is more housing for people to live in. Rheeeeee

[–] BreathingUnderWater 2 points 1 week ago

Gen Xers are part of it now