Understanding the Housing Crisis with Business Cases

Understanding Use of Land and Rental Market in connection with the University for costing solutions to the housing crisis.

Project Description:

The Fall 2022 SIR focused on the housing crisis, in which student teams looked at the currently unhealthy housing continuum, from transitional housing to market ownership. This project will develop multiple business cases that articulate the evidence-based reasoning and benefits to issues brought forth in the work of the Fall 2022 SIR students. The intended audience for these business cases is Hamilton politicians, as well as community advocates, activists, and organizers, and may be distributed to organizations like the Hamilton Encampment Support Network (HESN), or ACORN Hamilton (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now).

In Scope:

Create business cases with evidence-based research to help inform Hamilton housing stakeholders on potential solutions. In doing so, the group will present a mid-term progress presentation and business case. 

The following areas of focus include:

• The Student Body of McMaster University

• Unaffordable rent

• Effectiveness of Land Usage 

• Tenancy Rights

Background Research:

The group will conduct a thorough review and in-depth analysis of previous reports on the housing crisis provided by previous SIR students as well as all other reports found within the drive. This is found in the CityLAB SIR Fall 2022 Final Report Package. 

Student Team: Asmaa Rakik, Claire Kim, Halle Gibson, Johanna Fernanades, Marisa Chrysanthou, Michelle Lucas

Faculty & Course: Dr. Emily Scherzinger, IBH 4AB6B Social Entrepreneurship Capstone

City Staff: Al Fletcher, Manager, Investment in Affordable Housing/Neighbourhood Development, City Of Hamilton

Project Agreement

Seniors Connect Program

The project seeks to enhance the current Seniors Connect Program, leading seniors towards a better livelihood. This will be done through increasing the proportion of senior tenants who utilize the program, as well as securing financial support to continue the program.

Background

To preserve the vision of CityHousing Hamilton to be the best place to raise a child and age successfully, as part of our responsibility, and to provide support to the needs of a diverse community. (source: City Housing Hamilton website).

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, seniors are more at risk and there is a need to provide wellness support with the use of digital technology which is more effective and efficient than distributing flyers to seniors to keep them informed of their well-being.

Objectives

•  Within one year (or less) of installing a box in buildings that allows channel 399 to be accessed by all individual units, an additional 30%-40% of senior tenants will be engaged in the Seniors Connect Program.

• Within one year (or less), adding qualified volunteers to the Seniors Connect team will improve the output of digital information for seniors that will increase interest and information shared efficiently, adding value to the program.

• Develop a marketing plan to enlist volunteers to the Senior Connect team by tracking interest of potential volunteers through partners and adjusting the marketing plan accordingly. Incentives of non-financial rewards for their time and work need to be included. 

Requirements

• Business Requirements: The Seniors Connect Program shall be accessible on televisions to all apartments included in the program on channel 399.

• Solution Requirements: Seniors Connect Program’s digital content displayed must be able to fit the screens of televisions, laptops, tablets, phones, etc.

• Stakeholder Requirements: The content displayed on the CCTV needs to have appropriate font that is readable by seniors.

Proposed Strategy

• To secure a relationship with City of Hamilton partners (Mohawk College, McMaster University, and others) to find fit-for-purpose volunteers knowledgeable with content management and graphic design to replace exiting volunteers and assist existing volunteers of Seniors Connect. 

• To increase the fraction of rent (4.99$) for each tenant to fund the cable installation that broadcasts channel 399 and support the operation of Senior Connect for each building in exchange for a better lifestyle and well-being. 

Next Steps

• Action: Meeting with higher authorities to propose the Business Requirements Document (BRD).

• Responsibility: Project Sponsor

• Expected Date: 1st Quarter 2023

City Staff: Brenda Silverthorne, Project Sponsor, Seniors Connect Hamilton City Housing

Faculty: Lisa Pegg, Program Coordinator, Business Analysis, Mohawk College

Students: Vivian Si, Joshua Mallo, Jesulayomi Fadahunsi, Henil Jayesh Panchal, Matthew Chmiel, Business Analyst Students of Mohawk College

Business Requirements Document Report

Accessible Transportation Services in Hamilton

How can trip data from accessible transportation services be converted into useful information, to allow for the delivery of a service that offers more flexibility to persons with disabilities?

Project Overview

The City of Hamilton is always looking for ways to improve the overall customer experience when using public transit. The goal of this project is to explore different opportunities to provide public transit service to persons with disabilities. The city currently provides provides door-to-door service to clients who qualify for accessible transportation service (ATS). The service is provided by a contractor. Subscription trips are booked for recurring medical appointments or other activities, while clients booking “casual trips” can reserve a trip seven days in advance of their trip to ensure it can be provided. While clients reserve custom destinations, they may have shared travel with other customers enroute to destinations as drivers balance the demand for efficient service. Clients are able to travel within Hamilton but can also cross municipal boundaries such as trips to Burlington, and Niagara, or be connected with other services such as GO Transit. In such trips, ATS will either connect clients to services at the outskirts of the boundary to continue their trip, or drop them off at GO stations such as West Harbour, Hamilton GO, Centennial, and McMaster University. There is a significant amount of data available that details where these clients are travelling to and from, along with client demographics and mobility requirements. A data set provided by ATS is for the 2019 year which omits COVID-19 irregularities. This data consists of 844,007 trips.

In Scope

Convert data from an ATS to information that will provide insights including, but not limited to:

• Ambulatory/non-ambulatory trips

• Determine major trip destinations

• Heat maps

• Trips by Ward

• Inter-regional trips

• Volume by time & day

Background Research

Feel free to combine the data provided by the city with open data to further generate insights on the accessible transportation services in Hamilton. You may want to explore HSR open data from the City of Hamilton, and other supporting HSR and City of Hamilton strategy documents to see if there is correlation with ATS data and any additional insight generated . There are plenty of opportunities to move beyond the provided data set such as the Open Data portal, Transportation Master Plan, LRT, and Ten Year Local Transit Strategy

City Staff: Marco Mostacci, Senior Project Manager; Nancy Purser, Manager; Michelle Martin, Manager - Accessible Transportation Services

Faculty: Steven Way, Coordinator/Professor, Analytics for Business Decision Making 

Course: HEAD Competition, 85+ Students

Project Agreement

C.R.E.A.T.E Team (Creating Renewable, Effective, Accessible, Tenable Economies)

Currently much of the food waste from restaurants and grocery stores end up in landfills. This is an unsustainable way to handle food wastes and contributes to greenhouse gas emission (GHG) when the food breaks down. Re-using or diverting food waste could help reduce GHG emissions while also having the potential to improve food insecurity among vulnerable population in Hamilton.

Project Overview

Develop a business case that details the circular economy of food to be operationalized by restaurant and grocery industries, local farms, and other possible food sources to educate and articulate better methods of reducing and diverting food waste.

In Scope

 The students will develop and business case and recommendations report that includes examples of financial costs of food waste and associated greenhouse gas emissions, as the baseline and then research best practices and business case scenario that creates a more circular economy approach for handling food waste. In order to be successful that student will need to:

• Engage with subject matter experts from the applicable sectors (e.x. farms, grocery stores, restaurants, recycling companies etc.) to inform the business case;

• Conduct research including literature review and evidence of best practices and/or case studies in other jurisdictions; and

• Identify past and present food re-use programs in Hamilton

Background Research

Dr. S has agreed to offer contacts, while Trevor has offered to connect with a staff representative/Community Partner. Dr. S will provide some background food justice research and resources. Students will be required to conduct background research and examples from another part of Canada or internationally.

Student Team: Samantha Bader, Devan Flaming, Madalyn Morrison, Sarah Ord, Shiza Muhammad

Faculty & Course: Emily Scherzinger, PHD, McMaster University, Social Entrepreneurship Capstone - IBH 4AB6

City Staff: Trevor Imhoff, Senior Project Manager and Head of Air Quality & Climate Change at the City Of Hamilton

Project Agreement

Final Report

Emergency Preparedness

Research and local evidence shows that climate change has, and will continue, to unfairly burden vulnerable populations. Emergency preparedness is an essential piece to prepare for and recover from these impacts. However many vulnerable citizens currently do not have the means or knowledge to access or purchase emergency preparedness kits.

Project Overveiw

Evaluate and select programs and items for making emergency preparedness kits accessible to anyone, regardless of income. Are there subsidies or free distribution campaigns?

• Optimization of access and deployment of kits

In Scope

 The students will create a recommendation report to inform how best to increase accessibility of emergency preparedness kits. In order to this student will be required to:

• Engage appropriate subject matter experts to inform what existing work is taking place and identify best practices;

• Research provincial, national and international literature review, best practices, case studies etc.;

• Research and identify alternative sources of funding and distribution methods; and

• Conduct 1:1 or group stakeholder meetings/interviews to determine who/where/what community groups, organizations etc. that are already out there that citizens can go to during climate related emergencies.

Background Research

The students should focus their research on, but not limit it to:

• Existing programs/organizations already delivering emergency preparedness;

• What EDI principles need to be implemented;

• Equity and climate change research, literature review and best practices

Local, provincial, national, international best practices and case studies.

Faculty & Course: Emily Scherzinger, PHD, McMaster University, Social Entrepreneurship Capstone - IBH 4AB6

City Staff: Trevor Imhoff, Senior Project Manager and Head of Air Quality & Climate Change at the City Of Hamilton

Project Agreement

Final Report

Survey Matrix

Climate Change Campaign

The City of Hamilton declared a Climate Change Emergency and has developed a Climate Action Strategy. We need everyone involved in the actions and to start we need everyone aware of the existing and future problems and impacts of climate change.

Project Overview:

This project aims to create a detailed educational campaign strategy which includes up to three campaigns on communicating the risks associated with climate change (e.x., health impacts, property damage and other financial costs, climate justice, etc.).  

In Scope:

At a minimum the Education Campaign Strategy will include up to three campaigns on applicable climes risks (e.x health impacts, property/infrastructure damage, climate justice etc.). The students throughout the project will need to:

• Conduct extensive research and engage appropriate subject matter experts to inform the content;

• Ongoing City-wide efforts to identify synergy and collaboration;

• Best practices and case studies from other Cities;

• Create detailed recommendations for education campaigns including social and other media outlets, in-person activities etc.; and

• Develop approximate budget associated with different recommendations for education campaigns.

 Background Research:

In order to best inform the Education Awareness Strategy the student should conduct research including:

• Best practices and case studies from other cities, governments and organizations on applicable climate risks;

• 1:1 or group stakeholder meetings/interviews from subject matter experts;

• Research on most up-to-date science of climate change and vulnerability/risk assessments completed both locally, regionally and nationally.

Student Team: Leah Albi, Celine Do, Dima Ignjatovic, David Melko, Tristan Smid, Matea Tettmann

Faculty & Course: Emily Scherzinger, PHD, McMaster University, Social Entrepreneurship Capstone - IBH 4AB6

City Staff: Trevor Imhoff, Senior Project Manager and Head of Air Quality & Climate Change at the City Of Hamilton

Project Agreement 

Informing Early Years System Expansion

How might we organize the volume of quality documents that contain data during the pandemic years 2020 and 2021 into a digital format for analysis and identify the units of analysis based on the seminal resources associated with ELCC quality (e.g., HDLH) to provide evidence to inform planning and decision-making for Canada-Wide ELCC?

Context:

Hamilton’s Early Learning and Child Care (ELCC) is historically shifting to a universal service model. Canada-wide ELCC is anticipated to result in service system expansion related to affordable child care for eligible children. Increases in service operators and demands for service from families with children 0-6 years of age is expected. The Hamilton ELCC Quality Program supports operators who have funding agreements with the City. The Quality Program was maintained throughout the COVID-19 pandemic with primary data collection that requires analysis to inform the future. Evidence-informed planning and decision-making to support managing and maintaining continuity in Hamilton’s high-quality ELCC service delivery is a priority over the next year.

Problem:

Determine how Hamilton’s past quality priorities will inform priorities in the future with expected service expansion and service demands. A repository of data from 2020 and 2021 requires additional support to expand the City’s capacity with managing and analysing the volume of data that was collected during the pandemic.

Objectives:

1. Organize documents into a digital data format

2. Determine units of analysis based on seminal resources

3. Analyse the data including reliability/validation controls

4. Generate data output

5. Present key findings

6. Generate a report

Student Team: Daniel Buckler, Andrew Davies, Kevin Estriga, Josh Hidalgo, Joanne Kim, Hayley Koens, Eric Meandro, Cassandra Roque, Hrithik Sharma, Ryan Van Hoesel and Dania Wood

Faculty & Course: Emily Scherzinger, PHD, McMaster University, Social Entrepreneurship Capstone - IBH 4AB6

City Staff: Marion Trent-Kratz, Early Years Senior Research Advisor, Healthy and Safe Communities

Project Agreement

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