Why London might stop adding names to its urgent waitlist for Rent-Geared-To-Income Housing

A five-year waitlist and ongoing livability challenges at Rent-Geared-To-Income (RGI) Housing in the London-Middlesex region might prompt changes to how prospective tenants are prioritized when units become available.

City council will soon decide if a temporary measure to accept just 20 per cent of new London Middlesex Community Housing (LMCH) tenants from its Urgent Waitlist and the remainder from a Chronological Waitlist (based on application date) should be made permanent.

A new report to the Community and Protective Services (CAPS) Committee admits that the past practice of prioritizing high-needs individuals on the Urgent Waitlist, “often leads to a high concentration of tenants in RGI housing buildings with significant support needs but inadequate support, resulting in negative impacts such as building damage, cleanliness issues, hoarding, violence, fires, floods, criminal behavior, unit takeovers, and pest infestations.”

Renee, 24, who lives with her children in an LMCH community, told CTV News that she routinely witnesses many of those challenges, “There's peoples’ houses getting raided. There are stabbings. There are fights. It's ridiculous. It's unsafe. And, you know, some people want to make it out of here, but they're stuck.”

Total Number of Households on the waitlist. (City of London)

Currently, the Urgent Waitlist contains three categories:

1. Medical: Person(s) under continual medical supervision due to a terminal illness, those physically disabled to the extent they cannot live in current accommodations, or those who must relocate to London for medical treatment.
2. Social: Person(s) whose personal safety is significantly at risk and where legal interventions have been exhausted.
3. Homeless: Person(s) living in condemned housing, households awaiting child custody return contingent on adequate housing, and those without permanent residence or relying on emergency shelters.

The staff report recommends no longer adding new households or individuals to the Urgent Waitlist starting Sept. 25.

Instead, high-needs individuals would be connected to more appropriate housing with supports for their specific needs.

The change would allow RGI units to be prioritized for Special Priority Individuals and victims of human trafficking, “over housed” RGI tenants with vacant bedrooms who need to be moved into smaller units, and finally the 20/80 split between the waitlists until the urgent list is exhausted.

Locally, there are 6,720 units in the RGI system.

In 2023, the number of households on the two waitlists totalled almost 7,000.

Average length of time to be housed. (City of London)

Rising demand means households on the Chronological Waitlist are spending about five years to be placed in a unit— the average length of time on the Urgent Waitlist has risen to almost four years.

Renee described how it felt waiting for a home she could afford, “I didn't have anywhere to go. I had to rely on other people and stay in a shelter. Most of the time, shelters wouldn't even have a place to go either.”

The Community and Protective Services Committee will consider the report at its meeting on Monday.