We have a vaccine for COVID, but nothing to stop the housing crisis in Frontenac County.

Jeff Green | Sep 08, 2021

We are in the midst of a 4th wave, the delta wave, of COVID-19, and although we worked hard at it and are still working at it, we did not get vaccines into enough arms to prevent it from circulating in our communities.

The variant is circulating mostly among un-vaccinated people, who, for the most part, have taken that risk onto themselves.

It is worrying that, even though the risk is much lower, COVID has shown itself to be capable of resisting, or breaking through, the vaccines on rare occasions.

And then there are children under 12, ineligible for vaccine and about to return to school next week.

Nonetheless, things are looking up.

Kids are back in school. Thanks to the efforts of education workers, it should be a more normal school year than last year. Plans for after-school activities, sports included, have been developed. It may not happen exactly as planned, and their may be fits and starts, but the feeling of new beginnings at the start of a school year for all families with school-aged children, is in the air.

Last year it wasn't.

We are living in a wealthy country, and that means we have vaccines available to us when people in other countries do not. We also have enough wealth in our country to have ensured that people have had enough money to keep going over the last 18 months.

Our communities are full of opportunities for growth. There is every reason to believe that the next year will be a better year than the last one for most of us. Families have been gathering over the summer and will, hopefully, continue to gather at thanksgiving and new year. There will be a Christmas season.

Winter is coming, as sure as ever, but this winter will not be as bleak as the winter of 20-21, for most of us.

The darkest cloud that hovers over this scenario is not the lingering threat from COVID. Our systems are primed to react to COVID now.

The biggest concern that I see for our communities is a housing crisis, which has been here for a number of years but has become acute as the result of the COVID induced real estate boom.

The boom has brought wealth and opportunity to may on our communities, not only property owners but tradespeople, builders, retailers, etc. The trickle down has been large.

But like all major disruptions it has had unintended consequences. The rental market has been decimated. It has always been hard to rent in Frontenac County, and it has become impossible.

What is fast becoming a full-blown rental crisis will make the coming winter a long one for many of us.

Our local governments have been talking about creating affordable housing, only for seniors, for almost a decade now. A senior’s housing project is pending in South Frontenac, which will another few years to build. But it was never intended to address the issues we are facing today

Central Frontenac is still considering what it wants to do around housing. North Frontenac has been trying, without success, to entice a contractor to build a modest project.

Because of our municipal system, the City of Kingston has responsibility for social housing in Frontenac County. This has never been ideal, and now that the issues are acute in the City as well as in Frontenac County, their ability to respond is limited.

The loss of McMullen Manor in Verona late last winter to fire has made things even worse. Kingston-Frontenac Housing is planning to rebuild, but that will also take years.

Housing is an issue in the federal election and it will be in the provincial election next spring, as it is in every election, but solutions, if there are any, will also take years to implement.

Meanwhile, there are individuals and families throughout our communities who are facing either an immediate or a pending crisis, and we have no means of collectively addressing it through our political structures.

If there is a way to address the collapse of the rental market in order to keep people safe and warm this winter, it needs to be found within our communities, and it needs to be found now.