Housing & homelessness

Challenges persist: Community-based mental health in BC

Nov 17, 2017
By
In 2006, I wrote the report, “Community Based Mental Health in BC: Changes to Income, Employment and Housing Supports” to explain policy changes that had occurred with a new government and to look at their impact on community-based mental health services. In 2001 the Liberals came into power in BC after ten years of an… View Article

BC Budget 2018 should use progressive tax options to deliver on affordable housing promises

Nov 7, 2017
By
BC’s real estate boom has created winners and losers and has led to a growing housing affordability crisis with tremendous social and economic consequences. Metro Vancouver continues to have a massive housing affordability problem—in both home ownership and rental markets—that threatens to undermine the region’s long-term prosperity. Moreover, the 2017 Homeless Count revealed that homelessness… View Article

Vancouver looks to more ambitious affordability proposals

Oct 3, 2017
By
When the previous BC government brought in a 15% foreign buyer tax in August 2016, Metro Vancouver’s housing market paused: real estate transactions dropped dramatically, prices fell at the high end of the market and housing starts slowed. By Spring 2017, however, the housing market rediscovered its animal spirits, and more recently we are back… View Article

Searching for affordable housing in the 2017 BC election platforms

Apr 24, 2017
By
Housing affordability is one of the top issues for voters in the 2017 election campaign, particularly for those in pricey Metro Vancouver. While most of the media attention has been on the jaw-dropping prices of residential real estate, a tight rental market has fuelled rising rents and renovictions, and the most recent count uncovered a… View Article

Affordable housing and jobs: Now is the time to build

Mar 16, 2017
By
The BC government is spending millions on advertising to promote its actions on affordable housing. In Metro Vancouver, however, where the crisis is most acute, there is no sign that housing is going to be within reach of ordinary middle-class households any time soon. .@MarcLeeCCPA takes a look at how BC can build the affordable… View Article

Taking stock of BC’s new (affordable?) housing policies

Jan 11, 2017
By
In 2016, the BC government set out several new actions intended to address housing affordability. But as 2017 begins, Metro Vancouver continues to have a massive problem – in both home ownership affordability and rental markets. This threatens to undermine the region’s long-term prosperity by driving out young people and making it harder to attract… View Article

Four planks for a bold and progressive BC jobs agenda

Nov 17, 2016
By
BC needs a revitalized jobs plan. The provincial government’s narrow focus on Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) hasn’t worked. The government hitched BC’s economic wagon to the elusive investment decisions of foreign transnational corporations, and to the ups and downs of international commodity prices, and the hoped-for investment simply didn’t materialize. And for all the talk… View Article

The case for a progressive property tax

Nov 2, 2016
By
In 1993, then-Finance Minister Glen Clark tabled a controversial BC Budget, featuring a wide range of tax changes. A one-point increase in the provincial sales tax was the largest measure, tempered by the introduction of a refundable sales tax credit. Most of the budget measures increased taxes on the wealthy and corporations. Up went the… View Article