Unsafe roadways, grocery aisle toll, ER disaster: 2022 was a year of crisis
In Hamilton, it may be remembered as a year prompting change.
Starting with pandemic control measures and ending with inflation out of control, 2022 was full of crises facing the city and beyond.
Average prices of Hamilton homes topped $1 million early in 2022 and rental prices surged, surpassing $2,000 for the average two-bedroom unit. Surging prices squeezed residents into homelessness.
Some benefited from the real estate spike: one landlord marketed a prison-cell sized apartment for $550. Others lost out big: some with pre-construction deposits held hostage.
While a series of interest rate hikes, starting midsummer, flipped the script on home prices, the cost of rent continues to climb.
For pedestrians and cyclists, 2022 was a deadly and traumatizing year that pushed city politicians into action.
Among the early casualties were four people killed by a speeding driver outside the Delta Pizza Pizza in March. Renowned conductor Boris Brott killed in April. A teen seriously injured after pushing her brother out of harm's way later that month. And the city's 10th pedestrian fatality, a DARTS driver was killed exiting her bus in May.
The mayhem - including three incidents in one week in July - outraged community activists and politicians alike. Among various measures to make city streets safer was the plan to narrow Ontario's widest one-way street: Main Street.
When the Omicron wave struck Ontario in January, Hamilton's hospitals were bursting at the seams with patients while hospital staff were home sick. Issues persisted through the summer with stories of gaps in care and critical staffing issues, including shortages that forced Hamilton Health Sciences to pay nurses double to work extra hours.
The situation worsened in the fall with the tripledemic" of respiratory viruses COVID, RSV and influenza. A surge of sick kids and a shortage of staff put unprecedented pressures" on McMaster Children's Hospital. The dire situation meant there was no room for critically sick kids, including a four-year-old rescued from a Hamilton house fire that had to be sent to a children's hospital in London.
January shoppers found some grocery store shelves bare. Since then, the shelves have been restocked at inflated prices forcing many to find food for cheap.
A study suggested Hamilton was one of the least-affordable cities in North America. Residents relied more and more on food banks along with couponing and surplus food apps.
As crises in housing, inflation and hospitals continue change is coming to Hamilton. City Centre mall will soon be reduced to rubble and other ongoing construction projects are changing the downtown skyline.
On the harbour, the Pier 8 project slowly moves forward. And the last Stelco blast furnace fell after their harbourfront properties were purchased, and are slated to become a state-of-the-art" industrial park.
On the Mountain, residential towers are planned at Lime Ridge Mall. In Stoney Creek, furniture giant Ikea purchased 65 acres. And along the urban boundary there are provincial plans for expansion.
Jeremy Kemeny is a Hamilton-based web editor at The Spectator. Reach him via email: jkemeny@thespec.com