Regional Municipality of Halton

Toronto, ON - Ipsos-Reid conducted a comprehensive housing strategy for the regional municipality of Halton. Key findings of the survey indicate that:

• A majority of Halton residents are happy about living in Halton. Eight-in-ten (82%) respondents rated Halton as an excellent/good place to live, of which 36% rated it as excellent.
• When asked about what were the most important issues that Halton would have to deal with in the future, "managing expansion/ city growth /over-crowding" received the highest number of mentions (41%), far ahead of any other issue.
• A majority of Halton residents think that Halton has become a more desirable place to live in the last 5 years.
• In general, a vast majority of Halton residents are satisfied with the Halton regional government.
• Halton residents generally consider services for seniors and children more important than any services for people in need, like social assistance or government assisted housing.
• Halton residents believe that the variety of available housing in Halton is sufficient and appear optimistic about the variety of available housing in Halton in the future.
• But a significant majority of Halton residents agree that housing costs in Halton are high. In fact affordability and high costs of houses/living appear to be top of mind in terms of challenges faced by people in Halton.
• A majority (57%) of Halton residents expect to move into a new home in 10 years or sooner and about half (47%) of Halton residents have others in their home who plan to move in 10 years or sooner.
• Two-in-ten (23%) Halton residents faced problems or know someone who faced problems finding the type of housing they required in Halton.
• Halton Region has significantly more residents who own their homes than those who rent. Six-in-ten (59%) respondents who rent pay more than 30% of their gross household income towards renting their home, while three-in-ten (29%) owners pay more than 30% of their gross household income to carry the costs of their home.
• Only 2% of Halton residents are currently living in or on a waiting list for government assisted housing. Most Halton residents would not consider moving to government assisted housing even if affordability was an issue in the future.
• Halton residents consider regional planning initiatives to provide housing for people in need more important than financial incentives to the private sector and providing information/resources.
• There is extremely low awareness of all the issues regarding housing and affordability in Halton Region.

Key findings from the focus group portion of the study are that:

• Overall, people realize there is a lack of affordable housing in the Halton Region, more and more people across various socio-economic groups struggle with mortgage and rent payments.
• As such, nearly all feel there is a need for a variety of affordable and social housing in the region. While, most do not want a entire neighbourhood dedicated to social housing "in their backyard" many are comfortable with an integrated approach where social, affordable, mortgage based and rental housing are scattered throughout any given neighbourhood. The key message is integration.

The Ipsos-Reid/Halton Region poll was conducted from April 29 to May 16, 2005. For the survey, a representative randomly selected sample of 750 adult residents of Halton Region was interviewed by telephone - 225 residents each of Burlington and Oakville and 150 residents each of Milton and Halton Hills. With a sample of this size, the overall results are considered accurate to within 1773.6 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire adult Halton population been polled. The margin of error will be larger within regions and for other sub-groupings of the survey population. These data were weighted to ensure the sample's regional and age/sex composition reflects that of the actual population of Halton according to the 2001 Census data.

Ipsos Reid also conducted 4 two-hour long focus groups among a randomly selected, representative sample of the general population in the 4 municipalities of Halton Region - 2 groups among residents of Burlington and Oakville and another 2 groups among residents of Milton and Halton Hills. These focus groups were conducted on May 25 and May 26, 2005.

For more information on this news release, please contact:
Amanda Maltby
Senior Vice-President
Ipsos-Reid
416.324.2900
[email protected]

Ipsos-Reid
Ipsos-Reid is Canada's market intelligence leader and the country's leading provider of public opinion research. With operations in eight cities, Ipsos-Reid employs more than 300 researcher professionals and support staff in Canada. The company has the biggest network of telephone call centres in Canada, as well as the largest pre-recruited household and on-line panels. Ipsos-Reid's Canadian marketing research and public affairs practices are staffed with seasoned research consultants with extensive industry-specific backgrounds, offering the premier suite of research vehicles in Canada--including the Ipsos Trend Report, the leading source of public opinion in the country--all of which provide clients with actionable and relevant information. Ipsos-Reid is an Ipsos company, a leading global survey-based market research group.

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