Chris R. said:
At least this is affordable housing though. The Centurion is market housing from my recollection. No excuse there.
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Ah yes, hamilton's newest excuse to build eyesores "its's affordable housing - no need to put in money for poor people"

seriously some of these designs need I dunno.. anyone with a sense of aesthetic.. it looks like a god awful mashup of finishes.. also not sure when "floating boxes" became the new chic..

and yes, I get it, so don't bother responding to that lol.
 
Chronamut said:
Ah yes, hamilton's newest excuse to build eyesores "its's affordable housing - no need to put in money for poor people"

seriously some of these designs need I dunno.. anyone with a sense of aesthetic.. it looks like a god awful mashup of finishes.. also not sure when "floating boxes" became the new chic..

and yes, I get it, so don't bother responding to that lol.
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These are private developers building affordable housing because our government isn't willing to fund social housing because rich people think they're taxed too much while some can't afford food in a first world country. When a private developer does it they need to cut costs to .Ake the housing affordable.
 
Chris R. said:
These are private developers building affordable housing because our government isn't willing to fund social housing because rich people think they're taxed too much while some can't afford food in a first world country. When a private developer does it they need to cut costs to .Ake the housing affordable.
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or some of us just don't believe it's the government's responsibility to house people.
 
TheHonestMaple said:
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or some of us just don't believe it's the government's responsibility to house people.
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Every functioning government on earth houses those who aren't capable of taking care of themselves. This isn't a new concept. Unless you also think people with severe physical & mental disabilities like autism and down syndrome should be left to rot on the street, you obviously support some kind of government assistance.

Even if you truly think the government shouldn't have to support people with housing (housing first policies have been shown to be one of the most successful social policies in the world, allowing people to secure work and provide for themsleves) what do we do with all the people who simply cannot support themselves? Grind them into paste, criminalize and imprison them?

C'mon. Being realistic the government needs to fund social housing programs so people who fall through the cracks don't end up on the street costing us all more money than just housing them, not to mention the ethical concerns.

Instead we've got a further decaying social safety net, where private developers are forced to pick up the slack in the form of hard working non-profits and we're debating whether it's attractive enough housing to exist.

Now do I think this is a problem that spans wider than housing? Obviously. Knowing many that work in social services, our system, education, support and others allow families and people to fail. Kids don't receive proper education, teens don't have access to mental health supports, and people who are making it by fall into homelessness and can't provide for their kids leading to another generation of people who can't provide for themselves. Our system fails people every step of the way, and the end result is a need to house people, which at least provides them with stability to potentially find a job, have somewhere to sleep, and keep their few belongings.

This is beyond the scope of this thread, but I do hope this development model is successful. It's quite interesting. They are a private REIT looking to build for profit affordable homes. I've reached out to them for more information and I will share what I hear, I'm also interested in potentially investing some money with them to put my money where my mouth is.
 
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I have no issue with wanting to provide housing for the less fortunate. I just don't believe it is the government's responsibility to do it. Time and time again the free market has proven far more effective at providing all types of services to all types of people than the government ever will be able to. If there is a market need for such a service, the market will be able to provide it at more cost effective and higher quality then any government can. If you want inefficiencies, corruption and overall wasted money, look no further than a government bureaucracy.
 
LOL the free market is the worst at allocating resources effectively. Of course it is! Scarcity is the whole premise.
 
lmao the free market is the worst at allocating resources? Have you heard of that thing called The Soviet Union? Planned economies don't work.
 
Would love to hear of a planned economy (China, Soviet Union, Cuba, Venezuela, Yugoslavia, etc) where everyone’s needs were met.

Like it our not, the free market is the best solution we have. Governments are absolutely terrible at providing market needs.
 
Why does it need to be one extreme or the other.

We're comparing a soccer game with zero rules to a soccer game where all the players where ankle-cuffs.

A mature conversation about political realities has compromise and flexibility. Only sith deal in absolutes.
 
I just wish local municipal governments would get back to their core mandate of public infrastructure (roads, sewers, etc), police, fire, education, utilities. The city has no business building housing, providing drugs, social services, etc. That really is higher levels of government's mandate. That's not really an extreme position, and i'm sure the vast majority of tax payers in this city would agree with me.

I fully support developments like this one. A private developer recognized a market need for affordable housing, and are choosing to target that need. If the city/province wants to offer some grants for this type of thing, i'm also all for that. Within reason. But actually building and operating housing (i.e. City Housing Hamilton), hell no. Hard stop for me. They don't know what they're doing - ends up being a money pit with sketchy buildings.
 
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