For sale: 100 houses from CityHousing Hamilton, which will build apartments instead

It's double-sided news for people who need social housing in Hamilton. The city's largest provider wants to shorten the waiting list by building more townhouses and apartments. But when families are housed, there's less chance it'll be in a house.

It's very expensive to maintain single family homes.- Coun. Chad Collins

CityHousing Hamilton (CHH) will sell 100 single and semi-detached houses over the next few years, including 47 ready now. Those 47 alone should generate $14 million.

That money will go to building more social housing, said president Chad Collins. But this also means increasingly, that won't be houses.

"It's very expensive to maintain single family homes," said Collins, also a Ward 5 city councillor. "When you look at repairs to apartments or townhouses, you're looking at costs many times lower."

Instead, it will build apartments or town homes, probably on parking lots at King William and Wellington or Bay and Cannon.

Social housing is important in Hamilton, where surging real estate prices make it increasingly difficult for people on low incomes.

The waiting list for social housing sits at around 5,700, twice what it was in 2000. The city wants to cut that in half by 2023, but so far, there's been little progress.

The city is trying various fixes. That includes offering up its own land to affordable housing developers, and even looking at building affordable seniors units on top of the Riverdale Recreation Centre.

CHH, meanwhile, has such a tight budget that many units sit vacant because there's no money to repair them. That includes the 47 CHH plans to sell.

Many of the issues cost "tens of thousands of dollars" to fix, Collins said. That includes foundation cracks and broken furnaces.

As for the others, CHH will sell them as people move out. The agency will select realtors through a request for proposal process.

Overall, CHH owns 479 single and semi-detached units. From 2003 to 2012, the agency sold 88 such units, which generated $11.7 million.

47 CHH properties ready to sell

• 18, 34 Aidrie Ave.
• 4, 10, 59 BinghamSt.
• 4, 48 Blair Ave.
• 25 Eastvale Pl.
• 21, 33, 64, 68 Eaton Pl.
• 17, 27 Grimsby Ave.
• 4, 5, 71, 89 Martha St.
• 15, 34 Sumach St.
• 685, 686, 689, 752 Britannia Ave.
• 180 Tragina Ave. N.
• 383, 523 Catharine Street. N.
• 373, 381, 385 East 23rd St.
• 305, 314 East 24th St.
• 49 Bellingham Dr.
• 62 Berko Ave.
• 82 Palmer Rd.
• 10, 41 Eaton Pl.
• 19 Seeley Ave.
• 374, 375 East 21st St.
• 383 East 22nd St.
• 47 Eastvale Pl.
• 487 East 25th St.
• 74 Armstrong Ave.
• 98 Palmer Rd.
• 31 Eastwood Ave.
• 9 Michael Ave.

samantha.craggs@cbc.ca | @SamCraggsCBC