Gutting the middle class with the housing crisis
Almost daily, municipal or provincial governments declare that the housing crisis is an affordability issue.
Yet, developers continue to build well-appointed high-end condos and townhomes that are priced above the affordability point. A few hours of internet research easily confirms this.
By definition, this ensures that the housing crisis gets worse, not better. It’s the math, stupid!
Right now, provincial and local governments have confused motion for action.
They are now facilitating projects solely for the sake of getting them built. Like hamsters on a wheel, it’s a way to seem like they are frantically doing something useful to address affordability.
Through their various omnipresent lobbying outlets, developers are happy to promote the myth that more building will result in cheaper housing.
However, at a recent Saanich public meeting, not once did the developer ever use the word “affordable” to describe his project. Nor did any of the councillors press him on it either.
All three levels of government are complicit in creating this crisis.
Every two to three years, a population increase equivalent to Calgary is generated by federal immigration levels. This ensures demand will outstrip supply.
At the federal and provincial levels, significant taxes are applied to home purchases, which erodes affordability.
At the municipal level, politicians and planning departments have been prodded by developers to approve projects that clearly target wealthier buyers.
The middle class of Greater Victoria is being gutted.
Michael Laplante
Saanich
Taking housing away from students
I believe we are missing the impact of the short-term housing restriction on student housing. With thousands of kids using these short-term rentals as student housing especially in our area of the Okanagan how do we fill that housing gap?
Most students rent a shared accommodation from September to May and then these would be short-term rentals in the summer months.
Where does this leave students and how will they find housing to accommodate their needs when all this rental stock is turned into year-round rentals?
I believe this will become the next housing crisis and will have a negative effect on post-secondary education in B.C. when these tenancies can’t be found and students are forced to go elsewhere.
This is the negative effect I believe we will see.
Sean Paulsen
Associated Property Management (2001) Ltd.
Kelowna
Time for housing Titan to limp back to port
For years, B.C.’s housing economy has seemed an unsinkable Titan. For all the predictions of “cooling off,” it has steamed onward, not slowing long enough for workers to catch up. Now the boat seems to be leaking.
Many things got us here: lack of focus on rental stock, endemic NIMBYism, catering to speculators, the myth of endless growth, to name but a few.
However, the proliferation of short-term rentals and the prioritization of that investment type is something newer. Making short-term rentals non-viable in cities isn’t a magic bullet, but it’s a meaningful change in direction.
For those advocating construction as the primary way forward, it’s a mirage. It’s not possible to build enough units to make housing affordable.
No government is going to flood the market with enough units that the price drops precipitously; and, barring rules prohibiting non-occupant purchase, new construction is going to be snapped up by those looking to make a buck off the backs of the people who will have to live there.
Hopefully many of the current short-term rental properties will find their way to market, either as units for sale or affordable long-term rentals.
We ought not to lionize the anxieties of these potential new landlords: for every horror story of a bad tenant — and the Residential Tenancy Branch bogeyman — there are tens of people who dare not even raise basic maintenance issues with landlords for fear of “renoviction” and having to find somewhere to live.
Landlords fear cleaning up. Tenants fear being homeless. Those are not the same.
At the end of the day, landlords who buy up property solely to rent to others do not contribute to the economy themselves.
Their tenants wind up supporting the local businesses and covering the maintenance and (often deferred) tax costs. Otherwise, that would be a bad investment, and if it’s a bad investment, dump it and get out.
We struck the iceberg a long time ago. It’s time to change course and limp to port.
Chad Laidlaw
Victoria
No Band-Aid solutions for health care
Reading the Times 91原创 on Oct. 19 and 20, I see that our hopes and wishes have been answered for long waits at hospitals!
Self-help vending machines where you can get harm reduction supplies such as condoms, drug paraphernalia such as syringes, naloxone kits, drug testing kits, and other items at three Island hospitals!
I didn’t realize that condoms were something that you went to the hospital for, but I suppose they must be if the health system includes it in the vending machines.
$2,000 per month, times three hospitals, times 12 months, equals $72,000, times 10 years equals $720,000 without taking into consideration that the company that supplies these vending machines will increase their rental price with every lease extension.
Under Health Minister Adrian Dix’s watch, our medical situation has become dire. He can’t seem to find an effective plan to allow B.C. Health to have enough doctors and nurses to serve our communities. That should be his top priority.
Saanich Peninsula Hospital recently announced that it no longer could keep its emergency service open at night. This closure affects more than 120,000 people who will now have to stretch our overworked ambulance people further by rushing people from the peninsula into Victoria to one of the two grossly overworked hospitals there.
No amount of vending machine Band-Aids will cover the gaping wounds that we now have in our health-care system which has been struggling for many years but has gotten alarmingly worse under his care.
How about if our B.C. government finally starts to actually fix our broken health-care system instead of these placebo gestures?
John Money
Duncan
When the firefighters start a bonfire
So, once again (unfortunately) the East Wellington Fire Department in Nanaimo has chosen to have a Guy Fawkes Day bonfire, this year on Saturday, Nov. 4. Not smoke and mirrors, just annoying smoke.
I’m now in eager anticipation of our local RCMP having a B and E workshop.
What irony…
Dave Kirk
Nanaimo
Inclusivity is needed in Cow High discussions
Questions and rumours remain about the future of our aging, undersize Cowichan Secondary School and site.
That facility is being replaced by a new high school under construction nearby.
We were disappointed to read in the Oct. 24 Times 91原创 decisions about the fate of our publicly owned Cow High site and high school will be made by our Education Ministry, Cowichan Tribes’ elders and local politicians.
We insist that process start now with a strong invitation for future-use input from taxpayers — owners of the old, and new, high schools.
That input sadly did not happen when, in March, our school board proclaimed the new high school’s name Quw’utsun Secondary School. Its title uses the Hul’qumi’num word “rather than the anglicized Cowichan,” according to the Times 91原创.
With respect to all First Nations, naming our new high school was solely decided upon “after consultation with elders, staff, and Indigenous students.”
But why was name-input from all of our taxpaying public, particularly Cowichan Valley folks, not sought by our school board?
Exclusive talks about naming our new high school were outrageous — a lost chance to show students the value of inclusivity.
It appears the same unfair approach will be used regarding our beloved old Cow High.
Education Minister Rachna Singh, we all deserve to give input during these talks.
Peter W. Rusland
North Cowichan
Still too many barriers in the health-care field
B.C.’s removal of barriers for internationally trained workers is great news for many professions; sadly, absent are health-care professionals (physicians, nurses, physiotherapists, etc.) the group that is in critical need.
Governments, in all provinces and territories, remain reluctant (scared?) to deal with the ludicrous processes that the regulatory colleges for these professions impose on out-of-country trained health-care practitioners.
These colleges’ primary role is the protection of our public health and safety as it relates to these practitioners.
This role must also include removing what can only be described as over-the-top barriers to getting these folks on the ground and working in our health-care system.
Through several years of discussion on this topic, they continue to remain silent!
John Stevenson
Victoria
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