January 9, 2024. A day that dawned a new era for non-profit co-op housing* development. That was the day that Mayor Olivia Chow announced that Toronto, through its CreateTO arm, the Co-operative Housing Federation of Toronto (CHFT), together with two private sector development companies - Windmill and Civic - are partnering on the largest co-op construction project seen in Toronto for a very, very long time.  Located in an underserved area of Scarborough in the east end of Toronto, this project will comprise 612 non-profit housing co-op units and 306 condo units on a parcel of surplus land across from a major transit hub: subway, GO Transit, bus, and the Eglinton Crosstown (assuming it’s ever completed). The site will also include 3,580 square feet of community space and 12,770 square feet of retail space. This is a major development. 

At CHFT, where I’ve been working part-time now for a year, this is huge! My colleagues have been in the background getting this project to the point of public announcement for two years. As with any other development, they’ve been cautiously optimistic that it would get to this stage. The announcement and the media activity it generated also jostled the elbows of other private sector developers who are now looking to CHFT for other possible partnership opportunities - a part of a building here, a few units there. It all adds up.

So why is this such a big deal? Well, to understand why we’re shouting this news from the rooftops, you need a bit of history. CHFT was formed 50 years ago as a membership organization of the growing number of housing co-ops in the city. Early Toronto co-ops were conversions of existing historic communities like Riverdale’s Bain Apartments Co-operative and Spruce Court Co-operative across the Don Valley from Bain in Cabbagetown. Originally built as workers’ housing in 1913, both these communities were at risk of being bought by developers in the late ‘70s and demolished in favour of more modern housing. Tenants and community organizers fought to acquire and convert them to non-profit housing co-operatives to ensure long-term affordability for low and moderate-income occupants. They did so using funds provided by a CMHC-sponsored co-op development program. The co-op housing community in Toronto grew because of CMHC’s programs together with the municipal political affection for co-ops felt at the time. By the early 1980s, the community around the St. Lawrence market was developing and co-ops were part of the plan. Over time, other sites like the Goodyear Tire site in South Etobicoke and the Bathurst Quay became co-op hubs, along with many other converted rental buildings dotting Toronto’s downtown and newly built co-ops in the inner and outer suburbs. By the mid-to-late 80s, the provincial government also established co-op housing development programs. CHFT had a staff of 30+, primarily devoted to two areas: supporting existing co-ops with governance, education, and member-relation services; and developing and marketing new co-ops. 

In 1993, however, the federal government cancelled its co-op housing program. Two years later, the provincial government followed suit. CHFT was able to achieve some significant successes over the last 29 years, even without the support of a program, notably the conversion of Toronto Community Housing buildings in Alexandra Park into Atkinson Co-op and the Hospitality Workers Co-op at 60 Richmond Street, a new-build of 85 units. But otherwise, CHFT has focussed its energy on supporting its 185 housing co-op members in Toronto, York Region, and Durham, where about 50,000 people live. Large-scale housing development, it seemed, was a part of our history but not our future. 

Until now. 

Why has the City gotten enthused again about co-ops? Part of the answer is we have Mayor Olivia Chow who has been a long-time co-op supporter. But that’s only part of it. On April 7, 2022, the federal government announced $1.5 billion allocated for a new co-op housing development program. Those of us in the housing world saw this as an implicit recognition that leaving housing development to the private market does not serve Canadians well. 

It’s no secret that in the last 30 years, the market approach has produced a housing crisis of a kind we’ve not seen - well, possibly ever. Many will blame the pandemic, interest rates, and changing immigration policies. But this is not a problem of the last five years. This has been brewing for a long time.  There’s examples of the crisis occurring up and down the rungs of the housing ladder. It’s not hard to find examples. This graph shows the frighteningly widening gap since 1984 between income and housing purchase prices https://www.facebook.com/reel/683675196919298. For example, at CHFT, we recently helped a co-op fill 26 new affordable (but not subsidized units) of an infill project in downtown Toronto. To ensure maximum fairness for the unit allocation, we used a lottery to collect names of interested parties. A whopping 6,000 people put their names in the lottery. The waitlist for a subsidized one bedroom unit in Toronto is 14 years! There’s an estimated 8,500 people who are experiencing homelessness in Toronto and countless others hidden homeless and experiencing housing precarity. I could go on. 

So the April 2022 federal announcement got the co-op housing sector’s attention.

But here’s the problem - we are nearly two years out from that announcement and none of that $1.5 billion has flowed because the details of the program have yet to be announced. That’s right. No shovels in ground. No new housing. More homeless. More people paying larger proportions of income on housing. Bigger crisis.

Here’s where you can help. The Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada, with the support of the regional federations like CHFT, has launched a campaign to urge the federal government to release the co-op housing development details. 

So I urge you. Click this link to send a message to your MP to let the government know you believe co-op housing is part of the solution to the housing crisis. Do it now so we can get building affordable co-operatively-run housing again. 

* A non-profit housing co-op provides safe, secure, affordable housing to their members who pay housing charges (similar to rent) and in exchange, get occupancy of their units. The members elect from among themselves a board of directors, the entity responsible for managing or, in most cases, supervising the management of the affairs of the corporations. This self-governance concept makes it a bit similar to a condo board. However, unlike a condo, a member of a non-profit housing co-op has no equity interest. The building is owned by the corporation itself. And while it might seem a little like rental housing, the difference is there is no landlord or private market interests threatening members’ security of tenure. An estimated 250,000 people live in housing co-ops in Canada. 

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