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It was almost seven years ago, on August 14, 2003, when a series of power surges caused a cascade of shutdowns at more than 100 generating plants throughout the northeastern U.S. and Ontario. The result was the biggest blackout in North American history with 61,800 megawatts of power lost to over 50 million people. A lot of reliability measures have been implemented and business contingency plans instituted since then but, the demands on our aging grid continues to grow.

Just this past July 5, 2010, at 4:45 p.m. on an extreme heat alert day in Toronto, a rush hour blackout caused traffic chaos. Before the power was restored, the blackout, triggered by a fire at a transformer station, left 250,000 Toronto Hydro customers in the dark.

There is no confirmation yet about the cause and some news outlets (both the CBC and BBC) are indicating that power usage was not the source of the blackout. However, while we await confirmation of the cause, one thing is for sure, we have become air conditioner addicts.

According to Stan Cox, author of Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World, we air condition everything from golf carts to storage rooms and recently, Dubai was looking at air conditioning a popular beach.

Obsession with Air Conditioning

Our obsession with air conditioning is a relatively recent phenomenon. The amount of energy consumed by running residential air conditioners in Canada almost tripled between 1990 and 2007. And to make matters worse, we are entering a cycle of increasing temperatures resulting in ever higher demands on air conditioners which in turn will contribute to our warming climate.

There are however, some important tips for using air conditioners that will result in more efficient energy use and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

• Set your thermostat at 25°C or higher. Each half-degree setting below 26°C increases your energy consumption by approximately 8%.
• Consider cost-effective conservation measures, such as shading windows from direct sunlight.
• When possible, delay heat-generating activities, such as dish washing or cooking until the evening on hot days.
• Be sure your air conditioner is not blocked.
• Over most of the cooling season (which does not have to start as soon as the snow melts), keep the house closed tight during the day. Don’t let in unwanted heat and humidity.
• Ventilate your rooms at night naturally as weather permits by opening windows to create cross ventilation
• Consider supplementing the air conditioner with fans which will allow you to set the thermostat a few degrees higher.
• If purchasing a new air conditioner consider an ENERGY STAR® model, which use at least 10% less energy.

Looking for more energy saving tips? GLOBE, a leader in bringing energy efficiency to the housing sector, will be launching its Sustainability Toolbox in the coming weeks. For more information on GLOBE, visit www.globeservices.ca

As a fourth year Urban and Regional Planning student at Ryerson University, a housing activist in my community and a part-time employee at SHSC for the past three years, I was already familiar with a lot of the history covered by the City of Toronto Archives rental housing exhibit.

A Public Health Concern

That said, the way the information was presented was unique.  It provided an overview and history of housing in Toronto (using pictures, texts and official documents), making it easy to see the innovations in affordable rental housing in chronological order since the early twentieth century.  At that time, the housing situation had become so bad that the city’s medical officer of health, Dr. Charles Hastings, issued a report declaring it a public health concern.  This report was written in response to Toronto’s booming growth and industrial development, which brought with it the problems of slums, pollution, epidemics, poverty, and ill health in the late nineteenth century.

Since then, the city developed the Regent Park, St. James Town and St. Lawrence neighbourhoods. These developments still exist today and house a large number of Torontonians.  They all started off with good intentions: their goal was to provide rental housing at affordable rates.

The exhibit prompts visitors to take a step back and look at these developments – and decide if the urban planning ideas embedded in them have stood the test of time. As Jessica mentioned in her article, Regent Park, built exclusively to provide affordable housing was a success when it was first built. But the neighbourhood and the design principles used to create it faced criticism as time passed.

The St. Lawrence Neighbourhood

One of the more successful community developments highlighted in the Archives’ exhibit is the revitalization of the St. Lawrence community through the 1970s, 80s and 90s. The community was designed using a unique collaborative approach where the planners were not the ones driving the show – instead all community stakeholders had a say in how this development unfolded. The area features a mix of housing including rental units, condos, co-ops and community housing.

The St. Lawrence neighbourhood is said to be Canada’s most dynamic inner city neighbourhood and it continues to be a success. The exhibit confirmed my belief that the planning principles and the unique approach used to create this neighbourhood should be recognized and used to help plan and design future neighbourhoods.

Last week, Marwa Eldardiry and I, student interns at SHSC, went to the City of Toronto Archives. We were there to visit SHSC’s co-sponsored exhibition, “A New Lease on Life.” The exhibit is a pictorial history of public and private rental development projects in Toronto, depicting how the social housing sector has changed over the years.

As a co-op student from the Corporate Communications program at Seneca College, I am new to the social housing sector. With limited background knowledge in affordable housing, I was impressed with the exhibit’s presentation of Toronto’s history of rental housing. Incorporating numerous illustrations and primary documentation, the exhibit gave me a strong sense of the changes in social housing in over the course of the past 100 years.

Walking in, Marwa and I were welcomed with a large poster explaining: “Although Toronto is known as a ‘city of homes,’ it might just as well call itself a ‘city of renters.’” On the floor, in front of the poster, were two vintage suitcases, which set the tone of the exhibit: renters on the move in 20th century Toronto.

Safer and Healthier Communities in Toronto
A prominent theme that permeated the exhibit was the need to create safer and healthier communities in Toronto. Due to the inadequate living conditions that had been the norm in the city’s past, the city undertook the Regent Park North project in 1947, Canada’s first public housing project. The project marked the start of a public program to end the slums in the city, which emerged in the absence of a public housing system. At the time, this project took a new approach, utilizing the “Garden City” model. The new buildings, designed in an “X” shape, were separated by vast amounts of green space. It was interesting to be able to compare Regent Park’s building planning model, which was a dramatic contrast to the surrounding neighbourhoods. The nearby buildings were side-by-side, with little separation between them. The Bluette’s were the first family to move into Regent Park in March 1949. Alfred Bluette, when first moving in, said that it was, “like walking into a dream.”

However, Regent Park, built exclusively to provide affordable housing, faced criticism as time passed. The city and Regent Park tenants found the project to be ineffective, as it created a social divide, turning Regent Park into a community that became isolated from the city. The inner streets did not connect to main roads and afforded limited access for emergency vehicles and visitors. The area, not being conducive to community building, once again declined.

By attending the exhibit, I learned about the history of affordable housing in Toronto, and how social housing developments have changed over the past century. The exhibit’s examination of Regent Park shows how affordable housing projects in Toronto, and the lessons planners have learned from them, can help pave the way for future developments.

Visit the Exhibition
To learn more about the chronicles of Toronto’s public and private rental developments, visit “A New Lease on Life” exhibition at the City of Toronto Archives.

The exhibition is open Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and will run until the end of the year.

Watch for Marwa’s blog next week, as she takes a closer look at Toronto’s early development of affordable rental housing.

On May 11, Habitat for Humanity hosted a mayoral debate among the 6 frontrunners in Toronto mayoral race on affordable housing.

The debate gave the candidates an opportunity to elaborate on their platforms. But generally speaking, they stayed to their rehearsed talking points, while taking the occasional potshot at each other’s campaigns.

To bring you up to speed on their individual positions, here’s our cheat sheet on their positions:

Rob Ford

According to the Gospel of Ford, the system is broken and no more social housing should be built in Toronto. Instead, the city should take advantage of the current vacancy rates in private buildings and provide rent subsidies to low-income individuals. Ford peppered his speech with comments on the remarkable cleanliness of social housing in Toronto (he’s visited people in social housing) and how the Rob Ford Football Foundation was a good place for youth in social housing to become healthy and productive citizens.

Giorgio Mammoliti

Mammoliti, chair of the city’s Affordable Housing Committee, repeatedly flourished a copy of the Housing Opportunities Toronto: An Affordable Housing Action Plan 2010-2020 (HOT) as if it were his campaign document. He identified himself as a champion for further social housing development and reinvestment in existing stock. And yet his position on inclusionary zoning was surprisingly evasive, suggesting that he would defer to local communities (read: local NIMBYism). Mammoliti’s primary target for barbs was his council-mate Ford, who he repeatedly charged with a lack of experience on the issue.

Joe Pantalone

As Deputy Mayor and the sole lefty on the panel, Pantalone defended Mayor Miller’s record on the file (and got booed for that). He also emphasized the need for a national housing strategy, citing Bill C-304 which recently passed second reading. Pantalone also made a suggestive pitch for Transit City, noting the correlation between accessible housing and transit – that real estate near good public transit is unaffordable and that low to moderate income earners are denied opportunities as a result of that. Pantalone took issue with Smitherman on provincial funding for housing and Transit City and with Ford and Rossi on relying on private interests and to support social housing. But overall, Pantalone’s delivery was garbled and he got clobbered when he attacked Smitherman on how scandals like eHealth diverted money from the city – with ‘Furious George’ parrying back with a laundry list of poorly run, over budget city-run projects.

Rocco Rossi

For a Liberal, Rossi sounded like a dyed in the wool blue conservative. His message was simple and unequivocal: the invisible hand of the market is the solution to social housing. The public sector, with its “culture of waste” and lack of fiscal accountability needs to focus on regulation and hand the management of social housing over to the efficient, effective private sector developers and landlords. His solution for waiting lists is a more robust and dynamic city economy that will create higher paying jobs. When Rossi cited Pathways to Education as an effective, innovative private sector solution, however, he was challenged by Smitherman on the reality of this claim.

George Smitherman

Just as Mammoliti trotted out his HOT report, Smitherman repeatedly cited Habitat for Humanity, Streets to Homes, Options for Homes, Artscape and Toronto Community Housing initiatives in Regent Park and Lawrence Heights as models for the future of affordable housing. He also pointed to his work as Minister of Health in creating 6,000 units of housing for the mentally ill. Smitherman suggested that solutions for social housing should come from across the political spectrum. On the right side of the plank, he agreed that private housing stock could be used to create affordable housing and cited his track record of fiscal discipline. On the left side of the plank: reinvesting in the existing social housing stock, leveraging city land resources and the necessity of government’s central role in building affordable housing. The left side took centre stage when he challenged Rossi on the notion that you can run a city like a business — because when it comes to cities, there is no single bottom line.

Sarah Thomson

Strains of Kumbaya could almost be heard every time Thomson spoke. Weighing into the debate based on her credentials as a (briefly) homeless teen and a business leader committed to working across boundaries, Thomson was light on details but big on the warm fuzzies of cooperation and collaboration. She advocated partnerships between private, public and non-profit organizations and offering the poor a “hand up, not a handout.” She was also the only candidate prepared with a prop, sporting a pink hardhat to complement the Habitat volunteers’ white ones.

Looking for more commentary? Visit:

• BlogTO story
• Globe & Mail live twitter feed
• National Post story
• Toronto Sun story
• Toronto Star story (preview)

Well, it’s budget time again! Just got back from a breakfast forum put on by Global Public Affairs at the National Club entitled “Toronto’s Budget: Priorities for 2010” – it was covering the city of Toronto capital budget (the 10-year capital plan totals over $16 billion – http://www.toronto.ca/budget2010/index.htm). Councillor and Budget Chair Shelley Carroll described the budget process and the public consultations that are now underway to get input. They call this “the easy budget” – the operating budget will be the hard one (February, 2010).

A Markham Municipal staff described their zero tax policy – but that it may change in the coming years. The Markham staff person described the Toronto budget as a bellwether for most Municipalities. Bill Davis reminded everyone that wherever the $ seem to come from, they in fact all originate with the same tax payer. I found the debate interesting, and the challenges from Board of Trade on the flaws of the budget process and consultation, as well as the challenges and thoughts on how to raise funds (Peter Kuitenbrouwer of the National Post suggested some ways of raising funds – like selling Metro Hall). It made me think about how reactive budgets can be – Carroll wants to tie the city’s funds to the economy more closely so that as the economy grows, so do the funds. Others commented that this can be flawed in tough times. Either way, this budget is going forward and really is only representative of what is actually done with the money to make a sustainable and prosperous city.

And as I go into my own departmental budgeting process, I gain a new insight into the context in which I work. Social housing budgets are notoriously tight and constrained. To help with managing these dollars, SHSC has tried to provide insight into specific ways in which social housing as a sector can become more efficient and effective. Affordable Housing in Perilous Times is concerned with the framework of spending decisions, regulatory requirements, and housing programs which shape the production of new affordable housing and which protect the existing housing stock, both private and social. Check it out on our website under the SHSC Research section. Stay tuned for more thoughts on budgeting and how and what we do with the funds that fuel our communities.