From: THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR, June 24, 2000 Page N8

Housing woes hurt Halton

Quality of life is good but affordable housing still remains problem, report shows

By John Mentek
The Hamilton Spectator

Halton is a pretty good place to live, unless you're looking for affordable housing, need a job, a long-term care bed, or clean air. The Quality of Life in Halton - 2000 is the latest of three in-depth looks at the quality of life in the region, just released this week. And senior planner Ted Hildebrandt of the Halton Social Planning Council says apart from some areas of concern, the quality of life in Halton is improving or good overall. But some problems remain.

Waiting lists for long-term care beds are stubbornly high, despite slight improvements in the past year. Halton has the lowest number of long-term care beds to population ratio in the province, which has created a severe shortage over the years. The funds for 1,579 new beds in Halton have been committed over six years, but the report says that's not likely to keep pace with growing need. Air quality continues to decline with an increase in the number of hours of moderate to poor air quality from 1999 especially in the southern part of the region, home to one of Canada's busiest thoroughfares, the Queen Elizabeth Way.

Meanwhile, the report states, "Child Welfare authorities report that more of their admissions are due to problems associated with poverty," which the report says, "creates disadvantages which influence the life chances of poor children." While a national study on poverty found Halton has one of the lowest poverty rates in Canada, the Quality of Life report finds evidence of rising poverty in Halton, where the poor already number nearly 10 per cent of the population. They include older men and women, single parents, but in particular families. The number of poor families in Halton has more than doubled from the mid-80s to the mid-90s. Food bank use in the region nearly doubled from 1994 to 1997.

Hildebrandt works for the Halton Social Planning Council and Volunteer Centre, a non-profit agency devoted to social development and social change in the region. The report is available from the council office at 760 Brant St. in Burlington, or may be downloaded from its Web site at www.worldchat.com/public/hspc/. Halton is actually one of 20 communities in Ontario to measure and write about the local quality of life. For the purposes of the survey in each community, there are 12 quality of life indicators, bundled into four categories. They include social programs, health indicators, the economy and the environment. Quality of life data isn't supposed to be used to suggest some communities are better than others in terms of quality of life, Hildebrandt said. It's meant to track quality of life locally, though, and detect ongoing improvements or deficiencies. What the community does with the information is then up to citizens and local politicians, Hildebrandt said. "It's one tool that we can use in the community to talk about important issues," Hildebrandt said. The Halton re-ort was released in tandem with a provincial quality of life report from the Ontario Social Development Council and the Social Planning Network.