Poverty on the Mountain is unique and so are its housing issues

The next city councillor for Ward 7 will have to deal with gentrification like never before. That includes helping families packed two or three families to a townhouse because they've been pushed out of cheaper apartments in the lower city.

That's the advice Maria Antelo from the Hamilton Community Legal Clinic gave some of the ward's 22 byelection candidates at an event Monday night.

Antelo told candidates that she knows of families who lived in the downtown core but were pushed out by the area's growing land values. Now multiple families are packedinto one Ward 7 townhouse just to be able to afford the rent, she said.

We have a pocket of people who are being evicted or displaced.- Maria Antelo, Hamilton Community Legal Clinic

"We have a pocket of people who are being evicted or displaced," she said. "Where are these people going? Anecdotally, these people are going to the Mountain."

Antelo would know. She lives in Roulston now, but once lived in Ward 7 as a single mom struggling to make ends meet.

The transit service is so poor that she couldn't manage without a car, she said. And the arealacked services social services and community meeting space, which made it more difficult.

"People are isolated," she said. So they stay quiet.

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Whoever gets elected in Ward 7, she said, has to "view housing as a human right."

Affordable housing dominated the all-candidates event at the Ukrainian Hall on Monday.

The Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction, the Hamilton Community Legal Clinic and the Social Planning and Research Council organized meeting, called This Ward Has 22 Candidates. More than 200 people attended.

Each of the 17 candidates touched on affordable housing during their four-minute speeches.

Doug Farraway, for example, referenced the city's recent move to look for municipally owned land it can offer up to developers willing to build affordable housing. Hamilton needs to understand the value of its land, he said.

"I'm in favour of inclusionary zoning," he said. "I'm not in favour of giving developers a free ride. Not in this real estate market."

With Hamilton's affordable housing, "we're actually approaching a crisis level as the vacancy rate continues to fall," said Howard Rabb. He proposesa development charge holiday for developers buildingapartment units.

Check out photos of the candidates below.Tim Gordon, Luc Hetu,Paul Nagy, MohammadShahrouri andRobert Young did not attend.

The winner of the March 21byelection will replace Scott Duvall, who is now an NDP MP for Hamilton Mountain.