CityHousing Hamilton had over 500 vacant units in 2023. It says it plans to fill most in 2024

CityHousing Hamilton (CHH) plans to build 161 new units by the end of the year while also trying to improve a maintenance backlog that has left hundreds of units vacant.

Adam Sweedland, chief executive officer of the social housing provider, told CBC Hamilton there were 587 units vacant as of the end of November 2023, out of a total 6,974 units.

Of the vacant units, 396 were either being repaired or were waiting to be repaired.

Of the remaining vacant units, 138 were about to be occupied and 53 were on hold for large capital projects like sewer stack replacements or asbestos remediation.

Sweedland said CHH has made a lot of progress on reducing the number of vacant units given there were 649 in the spring of 2022 but the current number is still too high, he said.

Last year, the city gave CHH $3.8 million to address the backlog, which would help address Hamilton's housing and homelessness problem.

Most CHH tenants 73 per cent have rent that is geared to their income.

The rest have an income that exceeds the threshold for rent-geared-income and pay more, but it is still far below current rental rates in the market.

Rentals.ca data shows the averageone-bedroom unit in Hamilton cost $1,846 to rent in December which is more than what it would cost to rent a CHH unit with at least four bedrooms.

City data shows 1,671 people were unhoused as of the end of November, which is lower than the 1,985 people unhoused in July. But it's almost double the number of unhoused people in 2020.

The number of shelter beds and rooms, 357, hasn't budged since June.

And in November, 36 people were housed by city programs.

It's unclear how many Hamilton families are on the waitlist for public housing, but data from 2022 shows there were 6,110 Hamilton families on the waitlist and only 1,082 ended up housed that year.

How CHH plans to tackle the repair backlog

Sweedland, who joined CHH in October 2022, said the backlog occurred because CHH's funding couldn't keep up with the roughly 40 vacant units that would pop up each month.

"The rest were deferred to the next budget year it just compounds the problem," he said. "That problem has been addressed."

He said funding from the city, as well as revamping the vacancy process and inspections, will help tackle the backlog.

There are other factors that impact the backlog too, but to a lesser extent.

CHH has eight vendors to help with the maintenance work and sometimes they experience their own issues whether it be staffing shortages or supply-chain issues, Sweedland said. CHH also has to avoid disturbing tenants in a building where repairs are happening.

Sweedland said on top of the goal to build more units by the end of the year, he also aims to get the number of vacant units down to no more than 142, roughly a two per cent vacancy rate.

There's also a goal to ensure it doesn't take any more than 60 days to fill a unit that has become vacant.

"We can get the city there," he said.