The Tyee has published a five-part series about a green new deal for housing. The Tyee is based in Vancouver, where housing prices are pricing out more and more people who need to live there. The series is authored by Geoff Dembicki.1 Here in Part 2, he looks at what it takes to build a commitment to publicly funded green and affordable housing.
In the United States, with the election of Joe Biden, a green new deal for housing has migrated from being an idea on the fringe to part of the mainstream agenda. Geoff Dembicki in The Tyee assesses the prospects for a green new deal for housing in Canada.
Canada has a National Housing Strategy. It was approved in 2017 and presented as a ground-breaking initiative. But since then, it has come under fire. Among those voicing concerns, Canada’s Parliamentary Budget Office reviewed the strategy in 2019 and concluded, “It is not clear that the National Housing Strategy will reduce the prevalence of housing need relative to 2017 levels.”
Dembicki points to some hopeful developments that might transform Canada’s National Housing Strategy into a green new deal for housing. He speaks to advocates in Canada about the possibility of moving the idea of a green new deal from the fringe to a central program and reports on some early efforts to build coalitions of support.
He also refers to a 2019 public opinion poll, which tested ideas about green initiatives in Canada. A solid majority of the people polled supported the idea of a Green New Deal, which would add green-friendly jobs and help people who would experience job loss to shift to new careers.
Dembicki also traces events that shifted the green new deal from the fringe to the centre in the United States. Public support in the United States on its own could have a role in influencing policy change in Canada, as well as showing the possibilities for advocacy and coalition building.
Read more in The Tyee: Why Canada’s Climate Advocates Are Excited by Biden’s Housing Plans
Footnotes
- Part 1 looked at the relationship between the climate crisis and housing affordability. Part 3 will discuss an innovative approach to zoning. Part 4 recounts the story of a community group that turned a zoning proposal into a call for green industry and affordable housing. Part 5 looks at Indigenous initiatives that combine housing and climate change challenges.
