The YW Kitchener-Waterloo got its start as an organization in 1905, with its emergency shelter. At that time, it was a hostel for women coming from the countryside to work in the city’s many factories producing goods. Throughout the decades since, the organization has continued expanding on its mission to support women, gender-diverse folks and families who were experiencing the personal crisis of homelessness and all the trauma that comes with it.
For over 150 years, the shelter has stood on the same plot on Frederick Street and Weber in downtown Kitchener as the city evolves, rebirths and exponentially grows around us. It all feels like a possibility, but only for those who can afford it. A developing city is a challenging balancing act that often isn’t rooted in the people calling the city home to begin with.
The causes of our current housing crises are numerous, but in short, it has a lot to do with levels of government gradually downloading responsibilities to the next level of government and with no funding attached. Currently, municipalities in Ontario are responsible for managing social housing and are not sufficiently resourced to actually do it effectively. The underlying logic of the downloading and underresourcing has been the idea that we can trust private developers to do the right thing. But they haven’t. Incentives and funding supports to developers and landlords have done nothing to stymie housing and rental prices as they soar farther and farther out of reach.