The odds are far better than Lotto 6/49 but still small enough to make it a long-shot.It’s the Toronto affordable housing lottery, one of the only ways to get a reasonably priced downtown apartment in a city with skyrocketing rents.For the first time, said Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) spokesperson Danièle Gauvin, the agency is allocating units through a random “computer generated scrambling system.” By a late February deadline, 3,754 people had filled out a complete application for 59 new units in Regent Park. That’s odds of about 1.5 in 100, compared to 1 in 13,983,816 for the big payout of Lotto 6/49.The apartments are not traditional subsidized housing, which has a long waiting list, but affordable. In reach of someone on a modest income and set at or below average market rent.“In this case there was tremendous interest,” said Gauvin, adding one-bedroom units were the most popular and staff started making calls to the winners recently.“It wasn’t a first-come, first-serve, it was an everyone gets an equal chance,” she added.To be eligible, an applicant’s annual household gross income cannot be more than four times the annual rent of the unit.For example, a single person who makes no more than $46,176 a year could enter for a one-bedroom apartment at $962. That’s a steal compared to average rent for a one-bedroom in the centre of Toronto, which is now $1,498, according to November 2017 figures from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.The TCHC currently has 600 affordable units, and the Regent Park redevelopment will add 400-plus (including the 59), Gauvin said.Patricia Anderson, of the city’s shelter, support and housing administration division, said a lottery is an “efficient way to provide fair and equitable access to units that are typically rented at or below average market rent to qualifying households,” as opposed to waiting lists or referrals from co ...
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