Dear Housing Minister Rich Coleman:
Your belief in the infallibility of the housing market really is incredible.
As UBC professor Tom Davidoff says, “Homes need to cease being viewed as investments. They should once again be viewed as homes.”
As a member of ACORN, I am interested in protecting lower- and moderate-income citizens from falling into homelessness. For this is the real housing crisis, isn’t it? It is the gentrification (really social cleansing) that defines this crisis. When longtime renters are demovicted from their homes through no fault of their own, to enable big-time developers to erect luxury condo towers upon the valuable land where the rental buildings still stand, such social cleansing is not only unfair, but it is clearly not the Canadian way.
Those of us in housing advocacy have long recognized that there is a housing crisis. However, big money corporate media only discovers there is a crisis when the sons and daughters of British Columbia’s elite start complaining publicly about the unaffordability of housing.
So what is to be done?
First of all, you should follow the suggestion of Prof. Davidoff, who recommends that the numerous empty condos be taxed. This would help by waking up those investment-minded condo owners to the reality that if they own property in this province they need to pay taxes on it. This would also cause them to rent out these condos, providing more greatly needed rental accommodation for the citizens of Metro Vancouver.
The time is right to help people who need affordable housing. In 1993 the feds withdrew from providing social and co-op housing. Then in 2002 your government stopped building this kind of core housing. So obviously the need for social housing is extremely high right now.
Therefore, if there ever was a good time to provide social housing, this is it.
For one thing, in the fall federal election campaign, the new prime minister promised a “national housing action plan to provide safe secure housing to Canadians regardless of income level.”
And the way you finance these housing projects is by implementing a U.K.-style property transfer tax here in B.C. Just think how much revenue this tax would bring in to help provide the people of B.C. with necessary non-market affordable housing.
Wouldn’t it be great for you to walk into the next cabinet meeting like a knight in well-tailored business suit and solve the housing crisis?
Here is your chance. So go ahead and do it, minister.
Ric Erb is the co-chair of ACORN Burnaby.
