Increasing tenant voting
June 15, 2006

The city social services committee wants to encourage more renters to vote in November's council elections. And to increase their interest in city politics, councillors want tenants to know exactly how much of their rent goes into city coffers as property taxes.

To make this happen, the committee has instructed city staff "to investigate the development of a strategy to improve tenant participation in the electoral process by partnering with Housing Advocacy Groups" and "to determine and highlight the property tax components of tenant rental payments, and determine how to communicate that information to tenants."

Both resolutions were adopted at Tuesday's committee meeting after councillors heard a string of presentations from groups working with renters. About one-third of Hamilton households rent their homes, and very few of them get involved in municipal politics or even vote in local elections.

Tom Cooper from the Solutions for Housing Action Committee pointed to the drastic shortages of affordable housing in Hamilton. A 2004 city study found nearly 13,000 tenant households were using more than half their income to pay the rent. Families are defined as having an affordability problem if they spend more than 30% of their income on shelter - the situation in 2001 for 26,000 Hamilton households.

Cooper urged councillors to consider reducing the tax rate on rental units which currently stands at nearly three times the rate on single-family homes. Recalling the business tax reduction program started in 2001 that has cut business taxes by 36-40%, Cooper called for a multi-residential tax reduction program.

The committee resolution to inform tenants of the amount of taxes paid on their units follows from Cooper's recommendation. Indeed the preamble to the resolution argues that "high property taxes generally lead to significant citizen involvement in civic life" while also noting that "it is [currently] difficult for to ascertain their own property tax impact as it is blended into their monthly rent".

The committee's decisions were ratified at last night's council meeting.