Neighbourhood Change and the Fate of Rooming Houses
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NEIGHBOURHOOD CHANGE AND THE FATE OF ROOMING HOUSES JILL L GRANT*, UYTAE LEE**, JANELLE DERKSEN*** & HOWARD RAMOS**** * School of Planning, Dalhousie University, 33 Beech St, Dartmouth, NS B3A 1Y6, Canada. Email: Jill. [email protected] (Corresponding author) ** PLANifax, Halifax, 56-8675 Walnut Grove Dr, Langley, BC V1M 2N6, Canada. Email: uytaelee@ gmail.com *** Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, 12-4508 49th Ave, Yellowknife, NT X1A 1A7, Canada. Email: [email protected] **** Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Dalhousie University, 6135 University Ave, Box 15000, Halifax, NS B3H 4R2, Canada. Email: [email protected] Received: January 2018; accepted: August 2018 ABSTRACT The paper examines changes in the number and geography of rooming houses in Halifax, Canada. Several factors contributed to the near extinction of private single-room accommodations for hard-to-house, low-income adults between 1995 and 2016, while student-oriented rooming properties increased. Economic and population growth created strong housing demand as low borrowing costs facilitated property investment in central neighbourhoods. Planning policies encouraged greater densities and heights in areas formerly accommodating low-rent rooming houses, while regulations held rooming houses to new standards. Cultural preferences for urban living accelerated demand for, and costs in central areas. Together these factors contributed to an apparent rent gap that made many rooming house properties ripe for transformation, contributing to diminished shelter opportunities for disadvantaged low-income residents. The case illustrates how gentrification extinguishes some market-provided low-income housing options. Key words: Affordable housing, rooming house, mixed methods, Canada, neighbourhood change, regulation INTRODUCTION risk (Alfaro 2010; Freeman 2013). Known var- iously as lodging houses, boarding houses, In the contemporary context of rapid urban residential hotels, or houses-in-multiple-oc- growth and increasing social inequality and cupancy, rooming houses provide residents polarisation (van Kempen 2007; Walks & with furnished sleeping rooms with access Maaranen 2008; Walks 2011), affordable hous- to shared kitchen and/or bathroom facilities ing in urban cores is vulnerable to displace- (Campsie 1994; CMHC 2006; Durning 2012). ment through gentrification (Slater 2004; Tenants typically rent by the week or month. Smith 2003). Thousands of social housing Rooming houses usually accommodate low-in- units have been lost through revitalisation come persons – primarily single men or the projects and privatisation programmes (Goetz elderly – who otherwise face homelessness 2013; Ravetz 2001). A commonly maligned (Crystal & Beck 1992; CMHC 2006; Pedersen form of housing, single-room occupancy units & Swanson 2010). Many residents deal with or the rooming house, may be particularly at addictions, disabilities, mental-health issues, Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie – 2019, DOI:10.1111/tesg.12338, Vol. 110, No. 1, pp. 54–69. © 2018 Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG NEIGHBOURHOOD CHANGE AND THE FATE OF ROOMING HOUSES 55 or de-institutionalisation (CMHC 2006; Gaetz cultural preferences for urban living, economic et al. 2013). Unfortunately for residents who factors facilitating profit-taking, and policy de- desperately need simple and affordable shel- cisions regulating land use and development ter, conditions in low-rent rooming houses potential created conditions that undermined may be poor, with problems such as vermin, conventional rooming houses as a viable op- crowding, and risks of fire (Charlebois et al. tion for low-income singles with few affordable 1996; Freeman 2013). Clean, well-managed, housing choices. We find that an entire class and affordable rooming houses are rare, al- of private-market housing serving the hardest- though the need for such units is growing to-house is rapidly becoming extinct in (CMHC 2002; SHS 2015). gentrifying neighbourhoods in Halifax. Municipalities frequently apply zoning Here we examine changes in the supply and licensing regulations that affect location, and geography of rooming houses in a mid- numbers, and viability (Wyly & Hammel 1999; sized Canadian city between 1995 and 2016. Slater 2004; Freeman 2017). They have adopted Halifax, Nova Scotia, is the provincial capital revitalisation policies that promote economic and economic hub of Atlantic Canada. Created upgrading in areas where low-rent rooming as a regional municipality when the prov- houses once flourished (Smith 2002; Davidson ince amalgamated Halifax with Dartmouth, 2007). Living alone is increasingly popular in Bedford, and the County in 1996, Halifax had Western societies (Klinenberg 2012), and di- a population over 400,000 by 2016 (Statistics verse housing options for affluent singles are in- Canada 2017). Halifax neighbourhoods are creasing in urban cores (Rosen & Walks 2015). changing rapidly. Using mixed-methods, in- In recent decades, some private landlords have cluding interviews and field surveys, we pro- created rooming houses for university students file how the availability of rooming houses in converted homes or purpose-built structures, changed over two decades, and identify key leading to a process sometimes called ‘studen- processes responsible for reducing the city’s tification’ (Sage et al. 2012). As central areas most affordable market-housing option. We redevelop, and gentrification becomes com- thus provide insight into the ways that con- mon, however, the supply of affordable rooms temporary economic, cultural, and regulatory for disadvantaged single adults is diminishing processes are undermining market-housing (Mifflin & Wilton 2005; Mazer & Rankin 2011). options for society’s poorest residents. As gentrification transforms neighbourhoods, We begin by briefly reviewing the liter- the private housing market is changing rapidly ature on rooming houses and on the loss of in ways that price or regulate out options for the affordable housing in an era of rapid neigh- hardest-to-house (Newman & Wyly 2006). bourhood change and gentrification. We then In a seminal paper on gentrification, Neil present a case study of Halifax, explaining the Smith (1979) suggested that the decline of methods used and our study findings. After older neighbourhoods and the rise of potential identifying the economic, cultural, and reg- ground rents creates a ‘rent gap’ that capital ulatory processes that explain the rapid loss rushes to fill with higher-value uses. Ley (1986) of an affordable housing option, we consider countered that demographic factors (such as some implications of our results. smaller household size) and cultural prefer- ences (as for shorter commutes to work) played important roles in accounting for neighbour- THE ROOMING HOUSE AND hood change. Other studies noted the influ- NEIGHBOURHOOD CHANGE ence of government policies – promoting urban redevelopment and intensification – in driving During the nineteenth century, rooming change (Wyly & Hammel 1999; Lees 2000; houses provided respectable accommoda- Hackworth & Smith 2001). Recently, Slater tions for single persons and families in in- (2017, p. 125) challenged researchers to show dustrial cities (Wolfe 1906; Freeman 2013). how ‘the opening and closing of rent gaps leads After the Second World War, however, the to the agony of people losing their homes’. In number and quality of rooming houses gen- this paper we argue that the combined effect of erally deteriorated (Harris 1992; Groth 1994) © 2018 Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG 56 GRANT ET AL. as governments stimulated suburban private affordable housing in some locations: for housing markets for the middle classes and instance, growth pressures, transit availability, built social housing units for low-income fami- and government initiatives to increase urban lies and the elderly (Bacher 1993; Ravetz 2001; densities contributed to the loss of low-end Harris 2004). Inner-city neighbourhoods de- market apartments in Vancouver (Jones & Ley clined through the mid-twenieth century, with 2016). landlords often sub-dividing large homes into Documenting the displacement that results individual rooms (Freeman 2013). During from gentrification proves challenging be- urban renewal in the 1950s, planning ex- cause of the difficulty of tracking those who perts viewed rooming houses as markers and left (Atkinson 2000; Davidson 2008). Focusing producers of neighbourhood decay (Arrighi on private-market housing targeting low- 1997). For instance, in his study preparatory income residents offers one measure of the to urban renewal in Halifax, Stephenson loss of units, if not people. Inner-city room- (1957) commented on the negative effects of ing houses for low-income residents have crowding, transience, and sharing of bath- been disappearing in recent decades (Archer room facilities on health and social behaviour. 2009; Kaufman & Distasio 2014; Brandon & In Halifax, as in other cities, urban renewal Silver 2015), although suburban and student- cleared centrally-located neighbourhoods oriented rooming houses increased in cities containing many rooming houses and set the with high housing costs (Dalton et al. 2015; Sage stage for gentrification in nearby areas. et al. 2012). Many municipalities began licens- Gentrification, a term coined by Ruth Glass ing rooming houses in the 1990s, not only to en- (1964), denotes a process of neighbourhood sure health and safety standards but to control change that transforms