[This post has also appeared on the Tyee here.] One of the more contentious issues regarding the BC government’s record concerns the issue of social housing. To hear Minister Rich Coleman tell it, BC’s record has been above and beyond. For the last few years, barely a week has gone by without a government news [...]
Entries Tagged as 'housing'
Social Housing Reality Check: Government’s own numbers reveal modest investment in new social housing
March 31st, 2013 · Seth Klein · Comments Off · Housing & homelessness, Poverty, inequality & welfare
Tags: budget·homelessness·housing
An inadequate appeal process for tenants means a bumpy ride for everyone
January 24th, 2013 · Kendra Milne · 1 Comment · Housing & homelessness, Law & legal issues
(Co-authored by Kendra Milne and Jess Hadley, staff lawyers at the Community Legal Assistance Society) Earlier this week, we read with interest Kathy Tomlinson’s January 21st CBC Go Public story, “Landlords ‘powerless’ as tenants get free ride”, which investigates one family of tenants who have apparently taken advantage of several successive landlords. In her article, [...]
Tags: homelessness·housing
Imbalance in residential tenancy rights enforcement in BC
October 25th, 2012 · Kendra Milne · 3 Comments · Housing & homelessness, Law & legal issues
Yesterday some media outlets reported that the Residential Tenancy Branch has conditionally waived the first (and to my knowledge only) administrative penalty it has issued. BC’s Residential Tenancy Act was amended in 2006 to allow the Branch to issue administrative penalties, essentially monetary fines, against landlords or tenants that contravene the Act or repeatedly ignore [...]
Tags: housing·inequality
Vancouver’s poverty rate leads country
April 5th, 2010 · Seth Klein · 2 Comments · Housing & homelessness, Poverty, inequality & welfare
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 [...]
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 · 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 · 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 · 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 · 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
