Article about empty PMQ's in Oakville....
Perhaps CFHA can sell these and free up more monies for areas like Petawawa which has hundreds of PMQ awaiting repair.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Article&cid=1131058200821Nov. 4, 2005. 01:00 AM
Knocking on the army's door
CAROL GOAR
In the heart of old Oakville, a couple of blocks from the lakeshore, sits a cluster of 49 empty houses. They're well maintained. The grass is cut regularly. Some are bungalows, some have two storeys.
They'd be perfect for seniors, new immigrants or low-income families.
But they're off limits to members of the community. They belong to the Department of National Defence. And according to military rules, they must be maintained for Canadian Forces personnel.
Every time Marilyn Luxton drives past the site, her frustration spills out.
She'd love one of the modest houses herself. She is a senior struggling to keep her foothold in one of the country's most expensive housing markets.
But more than that, she'd like to see others in need move in. It boggles her mind that, in a community where seniors wait three to five years for affordable housing, a collection of habitable dwellings â †paid for by the Canadian people â †should remain vacant.
"Why aren't needy people in there? How can the army get away with this?"
Peter Holland, who manages Canadian Forces housing for the Toronto region, says he's just following orders.
There is a strict protocol for determining who gets military housing, he says. Members of the armed forces with families have first priority. Single military personnel come second. Civilian employees of the defence department rank third. And if space is still available, federal civil servants can apply.
"We have no mandate to house people in the local community," Holland says.
This kind of blind adherence to outdated rules infuriates Luxton. It's been years since the army has had any significant presence in Oakville and no one expects the military to move back into the region.
Luxton has called her Member of Parliament, Bonnie Brown, several times. She's spoken to her Member of the Provincial Legislature, Kevin Flynn. She's raised the issue with Oakville Mayor Ann Mulvale.
She's pestered her local councillor, Ralph Robinson, so often she's afraid he'll stop taking her calls. None of them has been able to budge the defence department.
A less tenacious individual than Luxton would quit. She probably should; she's had two strokes.
But she's the kind of citizen who can't stop trying to fix what's broken, change what's wrong and challenge edicts that defy logic and moral sense.
The defence department's military housing policy qualifies on all counts: It is wasteful, irrational and inhumane.
The issue Luxton is raising extends well beyond Oakville. Many communities have vacant military houses. (Toronto has 50 or so unoccupied units at the former Downsview base.)
Until the defence department declares them surplus, no one else can use them.
Disposing of military assets is always a delicate matter. It pits government agencies against one another, produces a clash of interests between private developers and social activists and generates fierce local controversy.
The expectation in Oakville is that the enclave once known as "army block" â †situated on a prime piece of land at the junction of Rebecca St. and Dorval Dr. â †will eventually be sold, the houses will be knocked down and a high-priced condominium will be erected.
Luxton would hate to see that happen. She believes the site should stay in public hands, the houses should be handed over to the Salvation Army and an affordable apartment complex should be built on the large, unused field in the middle of the lot.
As a former real estate agent, she understands the power of market forces. But as a citizen, she sides with the "people who haven't got tons of money."
At the moment, though, Luxton's battle is to get the locks off the doors of the 49 empty houses.
She can't see who benefits from having them sit there, clean and heated, while the defence department decides what to do with them. She can't fathom why an antiquated policy directive should keep needy people out of publicly financed housing. And she can't comprehend why none of the politicians she elected is capable of changing â †or at least finding a way to suspend â †rules that make no sense and erode people's faith in government.
"I'm a nobody," Luxton says. "I have no voice. But I have to speak out about this."
Every community needs nobodies like her.
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Carol Goar's column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
