Ronan Henneberry says affordable housing saved his life. She has lived with her cat at The Refuge, a youth outreach center in Oshawa, since May.
“For the first time in my life I have options,” he said.
“I have options. I can do things without having to worry about being homeless.”
Henneberry lives in one of 26 units inside a former school building. Apartments range in size from 150 to 200 square feet, each equipped with a kitchenette, private bathroom, and Internet access.
The Refuge launched its affordable housing project in May, responding to what Oshawa’s mayor called a homelessness crisis in the city. Nearly 500 people are homeless in Oshawa, according to July dataand around 1,000 people in the wider Durham region.
Young people have been locked out of the housing market and are dealing with a decline in their physical and mental health, says Clarence Keesman, chief executive of The Refuge.
“Something had to be done,” he said.
Residents of The Refuge pay $425 a month, which is equivalent to their housing benefit under Ontario Works or the Ontario Disability Support Program, he said.
The program lasts four years and is renewable as long as the resident needs it. Keesman says he has seen young people enrolled in shorter, non-renewable programs panic when the program is about to expire.
“They still can’t afford anything and then they are homeless once again,” he said.
Beyond the affordable housing program, The Refuge also offers meals, access to laundry facilities, showers, recreational programs, housing counseling and guidance.
Last year, the center had its busiest year in two decades, Keesman said.
“It’s all about housing affordability. Because if people can’t find a place to live, what do you do? Where do you go?” said.
Connecting housing construction and homelessness
The units at The Refuge are a drop in the bucket compared to the housing need in Oshawa.
About 70 per cent of Ontario’s 50 largest municipalities they did not meet their provincial housing goals in 2024, including Oshawa, which reached half of its goal. Things aren’t looking any better this year: Oshawa has so far met 25 percent of its 2025 goal.
The updated numbers show the Ontario government once again failed to meet its home construction target, even with new ways of counting homes. CBC’s Lorenda Reddekopp has the details and reaction.
For Oshawa to meet its goal of building 23,000 new homes between 2022 and 2031, the city would need to build more homes than it has built in the past 30 years, the city said in a statement emailed to CBC News.
But there’s no simple connection between housing targets and homelessness, says Tyler Frederick, an associate professor in the faculty of social sciences and humanities at Ontario Tech University.
While more housing is needed across the board, he says it has to be the “right kind of housing” (affordable rental housing) to have a significant impact on homelessness.
“Part of this is having clear housing plans or clear ideas about what housing is most needed, and making sure there is a spectrum of housing,” he said.
600 units of affordable housing in the works for Durham
The City of Oshawa told CBC News it has taken “significant steps” to remove barriers and support housing supply, including expedited approvals for affordable and purpose-built rental housing.
This is being done amid plans to create 600 units of affordable housing in Durham Region. This includes renovations to Christine Crescent and Normandy Street in downtown Oshawa that will begin next year, depending on federal housing funding, the region said in an email.
Work is also underway to see if another former Oshawa school building, Ritson Public School, could be converted in part to mixed-income rental housing, the region said.
Oshawa Mayor Dan Carter says the city continues to work with the region to provide affordable housing. But he says there need to be ways to combine housing with services that help people struggling with mental health and addictions.
“How can we take people from lack of protection to independence? That requires a pattern of investments and strategic initiatives to achieve it,” he said.
During his tenure as president of the nonprofit Durham Region Housing Corporation, he says he worked to bring residents programs like Rogers Connected for Success, which offers affordable high-speed Internet plans. He says these are the types of initiatives he wants to see more of.
(Jason Trout/CBC)
“It makes people uncomfortable because they think we should just provide them with housing and that’s it and walk away,” Carter said.
In the meantime, Henneberry says there needs to be more spaces like The Refuge throughout Durham Region that are safe and provide the peace of mind of a lease.
He says he’s heard dozens of stories of people struggling to find a place to spend the night. One of his friends walked from Oshawa to Ajax in hopes of getting space at a shelter.
“That’s just torture to me, to make someone walk through three cities and you don’t even know their past, if they have disabilities,” he said.
“And then if you show up… you might not even have a bed for the night.”
