Why Public Housing is the Answer

Written by Tim Smuck, Community Engagement Manager, London & Middlesex Community Housing

Imagine a place where people talk about you differently because you turned left on a street to go home while everyone else turned right. Where everyone talked differently about you just because of where you lived. Imagine a place where you felt unwanted and unheard. A place where you felt you had no ownership and a brighter future looked dim. A place where good health and wellness were limited.

Now, imagine a place filled with resiliency. Imagine a place where close neighbours looked after one another. Where people of shared experience create family-like bonds, and kids always had friends to play with. A place where great debates took place while sitting on the front porch with friends and neighbours. One that embraced diversity, and where everyone pushed past traumatic histories to provide for themselves and their families every day. Imagine a place that is, and always will, feel like home.

This was my experience growing up in public housing here in London, Ontario. To me, public housing has always been a place of growth, strong relationships, and a place that has always faced its challenges. Poverty has, and always will be the cause of those challenges. But public housing will always be the place that I call home.

Safe, clean, supportive housing is a driver for dignity and belonging and that’s what public housing can and does provide - and we’ve seen that more than ever during the pandemic. Not only does it meet an affordability need for some of the most vulnerable people in our community, but public housing also provides us with an opportunity to invest in some of our most resilient citizens and families. But only 5% of Canada’s housing stock is public housing, it’s the unfortunate reality that housing in our society is seen as a private commodity rather than a fundamental human right. 

We know that poor housing leads to all kinds of disparities from health, education, employment, and even happiness. However, if we flip our mindset and invest directly into the communities: in the individuals and families who call public housing home, they will break the cycle of poverty. They can seek wellness, have meaningful employment opportunities and go to post-secondary. Whether it’s investing in the mother who is working two jobs to support her family, or reinstalling hope in the young man living off of hundreds of dollars a month, or inspiring a brighter future into the youth who could be a future leader in our society: they are as deserving as any other individual within our community.

Many see public housing as a problem but it is the divestment in public housing and its citizens that is the problem. We must end the stigma that these communities have faced for decades and understand that everyone is deserving of a home and community where they can connect, thrive, laugh, cry, and love.

After all, is that not what we strive for?