When it comes to getting real action on building much needed affordable housing, momentary activist victories are no match for relentless pressure from financialization obsessed homeowners guarding their investments. And that’s not to mention indefatigable housing developers visiting the city council cash cow over and over and over to divert small activist gains back towards their own pockets.
The City of Vancouver is a current venue for these events, where owners enjoy the slightest housing taxes of any city in Canada. Here, owner NIMBY-ism and developer ‘gimmie-gimmie-gimmie’ requests to City Hall regularly produce a fog of self-serving City pronouncements and meaningless inaction. Affordable housing activists quickly learn who their friends are in the face hot air at best, with a side order of ‘stay-tuned for the latest reversal of any baby-steps towards affordable houses.’
With renters and newcomers shouldering ever-increasing cost-of-living burdens, City Hall is paring back the tax on empty homes, which targets absentee owners and landlords. Vancouver was a pioneer in the application of such a tax. Pittance that it is in the grand scheme of things, it has been reduced — retroactively no less — with the City refunding money to those who profit while holding homes empty.
Read more about the implications of this latest Vancouver City cringe-down in the face of wealthy, profit-driven . . . political funders? . . . cronies? . . . in THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT: Affordable housing needs more than just empty homes tax
