Hamilton Politics

Boundary Making*

                     Sixteen blinkered decision makers in the city of ambitions

                                                  Advised by experts to create more democratic conditions

                                                   Know, of course, what`s best for the municipality

                                                   Yet their views are fraught with illogicality

                                                   We need leadership not colouring competitions.

* http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/hamilton-city-councillors-will-try-to-redraw-ward-boundaries-themselves-1.3824643

Six Council Votes that Show why Hamilton Ward Boundaries Need to Change*

(This story appeared originally in August at www.hamiltonjustice.ca) 

Here is some history most of you will know.

In 2001 amalgamation of the City of Hamilton with Ancaster, Dundas Flamborough, Glanbrook and Stoney Creek took place. The amalgamation resulted in eight council seats for the 70% of residents living in old Hamilton. Seven council seats were set up for the 30% percent in the five former suburbs. Sixteen years later it seems that important council votes support the minority (30%) over the majority (70%).  For example:

*Households in the former suburbs continue to pay only about a third of the transit taxes that residents of the old city pay.

*Harbour cleanup has been delayed. Suburban Councillors (and then Mayor Bratina) did not support speeding up the cleanup of the Randle Reef. A proposed meeting with federal and provincial politicians might have done that.

*Nearly all suburban councillors voted in May to defer a decision on whether Hamilton wants the billion-dollar provincial investment for Light Rapid Transit (LRT).

*Suburban councillors (and Terry Whitehead) voted against looking at the possibility of tolls for “out-of-town” truck traffic on the Red Hill and Linc expressways.

*The King Street bus-only lane was killed by suburban councillors and three Hamilton mountain councillors.

*In April 2015 those 7 suburban councillors (along with Councillor Whitehead) voted to postpone the often delayed ward boundary review.  Fortunately, this vote lost on a tie.

That tie vote means that there is now an opportunity to change ward boundaries.  Contact your elected municipal officials to Make Change.  Tell them those boundaries must respect the important democratic principle of fair representation by population.

*CATCH (Citizens at City Hall) is a volunteer community group that encourages civic participation in Hamilton.  Their articles which were the prime source for the above can be found at

http://hamiltoncatch.org/view_article.php?id=1434

http://hamiltoncatch.org/view_article.php?id=1429

City of Hamilton Moves Forward with Poverty Initiative

Earlier this month Hamilton City Council supported Mayor Fred Eisenberger’s motion to commit $50M towards poverty reduction.  Eisenberger (right) had brought the motion to the City's General Issues Committee in April.

Among other things Council approved:

• A $20 million allocation to increase affordable housing and improve the state of good repair of housing.
• $3 million a year over 10 years for poverty reduction with the funds coming from the merger of Horizon Utilities Corporation and several other local utilities.
• Engagement with partners to help develop a strategy.                                                                                 
• Leveraging of funding commitments. Loans and grants from senior levels of government, school boards, and foundations as well as other potential contributors from the private sector will be sought.

City staff have been directed to develop a detailed 10-year integrated poverty reduction plan by October.

Mayor Eisenberger attended a conference in Edmonton recently. The conference, called Cities Reducing Poverty - When Mayors Lead, obviously inspired Eisenberger to do just that.

(Here are some reflections from Danielle Klooster of the Central Alberta Poverty Reduction Alliance on the conference http://vibrantcanada.ca/blogs/capra/cities-reducing-poverty-when-mayors-lead-reflection)

Back to Hamilton, where there was some opposition in the community and from two members of Council to the city taking some leadership.  Predictably, such opposition is based on myths and misunderstanding and/or just plan ignorance about poverty.

You’ve heard them.

These problems are the responsibility of senior governments.

You are encouraging more generational welfare and poverty by making more money available.

It will duplicate services.

 Howard Elliott did a fine job of addressing these myths and others in an editorial in the Hamilton Spectator.

You can read it at

http://www.thespec.com/opinion-story/6530935-the-spectator-s-view-exploding-myths-around-the-poverty-battle/

What is Gentrification and What can we do about it?

(This story originally appeared in The Anvil Hamilton`s Topical News Quarterly - December 2015. House prices in the Hamilton area jumped more than any other real estate market in Canada in the past year.)

Good news for some. But on balance this development is something we should be concerned about.


Tenants living in Hamilton's downtown core are being displaced from their homes and communities as an influx of new development and investment continues to reduce the city's affordable housing stock.  Displacement affects tenants' health, access to education, and employment -- resources that tenants need to thrive.  It is called gentrification.

Geography Professor David Ley, writing in the book the Canadian City, had this to say about gentrification.


“Gentrification deserves considerably more attention than it has received in Canada, if for one significant reason.  One of the most serious policy concerns in Canadian cities over the past 15 years has been the non-availability of affordable housing (especially rental units).”

Ley wrote these words nearly thirty years ago (in 1986) regarding a trend that had already been in motion for 15 years. 


What is gentrification?

The term became popular in the 1960’s. British sociologist Ruth Glass used it to describe the phenomenon of young “bohemians” moving into a rundown part of London England.  The bohemians were taking the place of long-standing, blue-collar communities who could no longer afford to live there. Glass saw this as a problem.  However, over time the term gentrification has been replaced by a kinder word “regeneration”   Regeneration seems to suggest that communities are being improved.

We’ll call it gentrification - “the fin is above the water. Below is the rest of the shark." That is how
American writer Rebecca Solnit refers to what has happened in her hometown of San Francisco.  It is now a “hollow city” with an economy where "most of us will be poorer, a few will be far richer, and everything will be faster, more homogenous and more controlled or controllable". (Robert Bevan in the Guardian, February 27, 2014)

The City of Hamilton is somewhat unique as far as gentrification goes. Research that was released earlier this year is illustrative. (A City on the Cusp: Neighbourhood Change in Hamilton since 1970 -

Professor Richard Harris

Richard Harris Jim Dunn, Sarah Wakefield)

Most of us will be familiar with how the decline in manufacturing has impacted our city.  This research takes a look at what deindustrialization and other trends (growth of the service industry, deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, etc.. ) has done to neighbourhoods.

Here is the thrust of their argument.

Historically, Hamilton has been fairly unique in that there has been relative income equality across all its neighbourhoods.  That has changed.  We now have “a marked segregation of the poor and a steady polarization of neighbourhoods.”

Using a measure of income inequality called the Gini coefficient, the authors argue that income inequality has increased in Hamilton more rapidly than any other city in Canada.  The rates of housing poverty (where households spend excessive amounts of income on housing) rival that of cities like Vancouver and Toronto where housing is much more expensive.  With downtown neighbourhoods being gentrified, residents and problems associated with income disparities are moving to Mountain neighbourhoods.

What Can be Done?

Professor Ley’s article cited above hit on some of the policy approaches that can be taken to tackle the problems caused by gentrification. 

Building more affordable housing is one approach.  Government, particularly at the federal level, has shown little interest in this strategy of late. 

Some municipalities, including Hamilton, have tried to retain existing housing through local regulations like demolition controls and restrictions on condominium conversions.   This doesn’t seem to be making much difference. 

Government programs in the seventies designed to preserve and enhance properties like the Neighbourhood Improvement Program (NIP) worked.  Neighbourhood decay may be too far advanced for such initiatives to succeed.

Right to the City (http://righttothecity.org/) and other groups in the United States have put forward the argument that gentrification violates the rights of people who are displaced because they can’t afford increased rents.  The argument is that those rights are guaranteed under the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Article 25 of this Declaration asserts that everyone has a right to housing.  Other rights are spelled out.  The Declaration was ratified in 1948 before gentrification was identified.  It will be interesting to see how this human rights approach proceeds.

In addition though, Right to the City and other American groups have developed programs and toolkits for those who are trying to halt the displacement of poor and disadvantaged individuals and families.

Perhaps we can look to these approaches for solutions to the problems gentrification is creating in Hamilton.

The Right to an Adequate Standard of Living - Something to Consider for Municipalities

(The story that follows is an edited version of one that originally appeared at www.hamiltonjustice.ca)

Ten years ago, Craig Foye a lawyer at the Hamilton Community Legal Clinic presented to the United Nations in Geneva Switzerland on the growing levels of poverty in Hamilton. That presentation also talked about the failure of senior levels of government to provide an adequate standard of living for those experiencing poverty. *


Craig Foye, Lead author of Update

Foye’s report started an important conversation about the adequacy of social assistance rates.

Recently, Foye updated that report and forwarded it to the the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR). **  Earlier this month, Foye spoke to the City of Hamilton’s Emergency and Community Services Committee about the update.

This updated report authored by Foye in collaboration with Laura Cattari and Tom Cooper of the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction and Sara Mayo of the Social Planning & Research Council of Hamilton is intended to assist the CESCR in assessing the degree to which Canada is conforming to its obligations under the Covenant on Economic, Social & Cultural Rights.

Request of Hamilton City Council

On behalf of the Clinic, the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction and the Social Planning and Research Council, Foye made two requests.

First, he asked that Hamilton City Council endorse “The Right to an Adequate Standard of Living: An Update to the 2006 Report”, and write to the United Nations Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights to confirm that endorsement to the UN Committee.

Secondly, he requested that Council direct staff to research the possibility of Hamilton becoming a Human Rights City. ***

An edited version of Craig Foye’s presentation follows.

The Presentation

I propose to speak briefly regarding the follow-up report to the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social & Cultural Rights regarding the Government of Canada's non-compliance with Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights.
Article 11 of the Covenant guarantees the right to an adequate standard of living. Paragraph 1 of

Article 11 reads:

The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions. The States Parties will take appropriate steps to ensure the realization of this right, recognizing to this effect the essential importance of international co-operation based on free consent.

Unfortunately, as both reports show, the right to an adequate standard of living is not being acknowledged or protected by either the Provincial or Federal Governments.

We continue to have social assistance rates that fall far below subsistence levels of income, and those rates remain arbitrary numbers with no relation to the actual cost of basic necessities; although efforts have been made in this area by the Provincial government, the situation continues to gets worse as rates fail to keep pace with the increase in the costs of basic necessities such as rent and food.

While efforts have been made to respond locally to the homelessness crisis, we are nowhere close to providing the numbers of housing subsidies required, and the Landlord and Tenant Board of Ontario (like the Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal before it) continues to evict many thousands of tenants for arrears of rent. The number of unemployed workers who qualify for employment insurance benefits locally remains at alarming levels, particularly for women. The minimum wage remains below poverty levels, meaning that even those workers working full-time or more may not be able to pull their family out of poverty. Not surprisingly, we continue to see local individuals and families who cannot afford to feed themselves turning to food-banks and meal programs in unprecedented numbers.

Unfortunately, this poverty is being experienced disproportionately by many already vulnerable groups, including, but not limited to: women, seniors, newcomers, Aboriginal persons, persons with disabilities, and visible minorities.

Action Taken

After hearing the presentation, the Committee has agreed to recommend that City Council endorse the UN report. Councillor Merulla added an amendment that the letter refer to the unfairness of the tax system in Canada as it applies to municipalities.

The Committee also recommended that Council direct staff to research and report back regarding Hamilton becoming a Human Rights City.

Resources:

*Craig recorded some of his observations from his 2006 trip to Geneva at http://craigfoye.blogspot.ca/

**The Right to An Adequate Standard of Living in Hamilton http://1drv.ms/1KcW7lu

**Learn more about Human Rights Cities at http://www.pdhre.org/projects/hrcommun.html

Regulating the Predatory Lenders

Ward Three Councillor Matthew Councillor Green (pictured to the right) has a motion coming to Hamilton City Council on Wednesday September 9th.  The motion is requesting authority from the Province for the City of Hamilton to limit the number and regulate the locations of payday loan cheque cashing outlets.

Many other municipalities in Canada and the United States have implemented tighter restrictions on payday loan companies. In Winnipeg, for example, payday lenders must be a minimum of 1,000 feet apart. Another municipality, the town of Esquimalt, has increased its business license fee from $100 to $2,000. (http://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/task-force-recommended-to-improve-citys-payday-loan-regulations). About 200 U.S municipalities are regulating these predators.

Last month, Global reported that cities in Alberta were banding together to fight against the 600% interest rates allowed by law in that province. (http://globalnews.ca/news/2185642/alberta-cities-organizations-band-together-to-fight-600-payday-loan-interest-rate/)

They'll put payday loan companies out of business, argues lobbyist Stan Keyes.

While many would like these guys put out of business altogether, alternatives are needed because the major banks have abandoned low-income communities and earners.  In Sheffield England, Council has come up with an alternative by offering municipal loans to residents. http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/aug/08/sheffield-money-payday-loans-rates-poverty

I've argued that postal banking could be an alternative that would provide access to financial services for all Canadians.  HTTP://WWW.HAMILTONJUSTICE.CA/BLOG/?POST=PAYDAY+LENDERS+CONTINUE+TO+OUTRAGE+US&ID=303)

In the meantime, I commend Hamilton's Councillor Green for his initiative.

Here is his motion:

WHEREAS the Province of Ontario’s Ministry of Consumer Services is responsible for the Consumer Protection Act and the Payday Loans Act which regulates and licenses money lending businesses;

WHEREAS the Province of Ontario regulates the interest rates of money lending businesses while Municipalities have the authority to regulate and license businesses to protect consumers if this is not already done by the Province;

WHEREAS the use and expansion of payday loan and cheque cashing outlets in Hamilton neighbourhoods is a significant consumer protection issue identified by the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction and neighbourhood and community groups; and

WHEREAS it is important that customers of payday loan and cheque outlets have a complete understanding of the financial services being offered.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:

(a) That the Mayor be authorized to forward correspondence to the Province of Ontario, to the attention of the Minister of Consumer Services, requesting that the protections afforded by the Payday Loans Act be strengthened and that Municipalities be authorized to limit the number and regulate the locations of payday loan and cheque cashing outlets;

(b) That Staff be directed to research the feasibility of licensing payday loan and cheque cashing outlets to assist in consumer protection by requiring the businesses to post their rates, show comparative and annualized rates and information regarding debt counselling.

(c) That staff analyze and map pay day loan and cheque cashing outlets in Hamilton and report back to Council on recommendations for alternative accessible financial services for Hamilton residents.