Thanks to Jean Swanson for drawing to my attention a new report from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities called Mending Canada’s frayed social safety net: The role of municipal governments. The report looks at key social indicators in 24 Canadian municipalities, and contains some stark findings for Vancouver. Jean summarizes these in a blog post [...]
Entries Tagged as 'housing'
Vancouver’s poverty rate leads country
April 5th, 2010 · Seth Klein · 2 Comments · Housing & homelessness, Poverty, inequality & welfare
BC’s Urban Housing (Un)affordability
January 25th, 2010 · Iglika Ivanova · 4 Comments · Agriculture, Environment, resources & sustainability, Housing & homelessness, Poverty, inequality & welfare
A new study published today by the Frontier Institute for Public Policy finds that Vancouver has the most unaffordable urban housing market not just in Canada, but in all of Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. This conclusion is based on a very simple, yet effective measure of housing affordability: [...]
Housing Solutions
January 2nd, 2010 · Seth Klein · Comments Off · Housing & homelessness
Just wanted to give our blog readers a plug for an excellent collection on housing solutions. Some of you have likely been following the Tyee’s excellent series of articles on housing and homelessness, written by Monte Paulsen. Now the Tyee has put that whole series together in a single pdf collection. You can find it [...]
Tags: homelessness·housing
Well, now that Alberta is doing it …
March 17th, 2009 · Marc Lee · 2 Comments · BC Election 2009, Housing & homelessness, Poverty, inequality & welfare
You could say that BC is more than a little sweet on Alberta. We love their individualistic, tax-cutting, tar-sanding grit. Can’t get enough of it. We even signed a silly economic agreement called TILMA (the BC-Alberta Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement) so we could be more like them. If Alberta went and ran massive [...]
Tags: homelessness·housing·poverty·TILMA
UN raps our housing record
March 11th, 2009 · Seth Klein · Comments Off · BC Election 2009, Housing & homelessness, Poverty, inequality & welfare
In mid February, a report was released that received very little attention, but should have: The report of the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing’s Mission to Canada (hat tip to Jean Swanson for drawing the final report to my attention; it can be found here; just scroll down to the “Mission to Canada”.) The [...]
Tags: Aboriginal·Downtown Eastside·homelessness·housing·Olympics·poverty·UN
Nailing down homeless targets
March 9th, 2009 · Seth Klein · Comments Off · BC Election 2009, Housing & homelessness, Poverty, inequality & welfare
Kudos to BC’s Auditor General for his report on homelessness last week. John Doyle’s report raised numerous concerns, including that the provincial government lacks solid numbers on how many homeless people there are in BC, who they are, and most importantly, he found that the province does not have a clear and comprehensive action plan, [...]
Tags: homelessness·housing·poverty
Not the usual sceptics
February 22nd, 2009 · Keith Reynolds · Comments Off · BC Election 2009, Provincial budget & finance
Scepticism about the provincial budget last week is extending beyond the usual sceptics. BC’s Credit Union Central has published its take titled “The Bandage Budget” (read here) and it is raising some questions about assumptions being presented. On the size of the possible deficit: The projected deficit in 2009/10 is small in absolute ($495 million) [...]
Tags: budget·Credit Union Central·deficit·employment·housing
Numerically Challenged
February 20th, 2009 · Michael Goldberg · Comments Off · BC Election 2009, Provincial budget & finance
The BC budget just doesn’t add up once you look at some of the details. Since the 2009 economy is shrinking, how can revenues from personal income tax be greater in 2009 than 2008, when the yearly economy was still growing? A more for less approach seems to be endemic with the premier. When commenting [...]
Tags: Aboriginal·budget·construction·housing
Talk of addressing homelessness in Throne Speech remains just that
February 17th, 2009 · Iglika Ivanova · Comments Off · BC Election 2009, Housing & homelessness, Poverty, inequality & welfare, Provincial budget & finance
Yesterday’s Throne Speech got me excited with its promise of finally addressing homelessness in BC. Like everyone else, I expected the economy to be the main focus of the document and was not surprised to hear that the government is planning to create jobs through ramping up infrastructure spending. But then I got to page [...]
