In the face of a report from a Canada-B.C. expert panel on housing affordability, here are some clues why grassroots democracy has difficulty addressing the province’s, the nation’s and the world’s current housing crisis.
At the heart of the global crisis are renters. It is lower income renters who are both cost-burdened and closest to falling into homelessness. Low income renters, including those in public/social housing, are becoming more and more just a small mishap away from living in a shelter, under a bridge, or in a tent.
True enough, many mortgage-holder owners are also housing cost-burdened. But on average in Canada, they are more than five times more financially secure than renters, with higher incomes that make a housing cost burden more bearable. Paying 50% of $100,000 mortgage-payer income for housing leaves more wiggle room than paying 50% of a $20,000 renter income.
So, one might expect a responsible government to save their handouts to help renters, rather than homeowners, no?
No. That was certainly the reaction of both British Columbia and Canada’s Federal government to a proposal from the expert committee to cut homeowner handouts in favour of rental housing support.
We can blame this unfortunate turn of events upon democracy. In Canada, 67% of voters are homeowners. It can easily be argued that a responsible government should be beholden first to the needs of that majority.
And indeed, both federal and provincial government are presuming that the majority are perfectly happy with the status quo. In British Columbia, that includes an annual homeowner grant from the provincial government. And the majority of citizens undoubtedly remain beyond delighted that there is no capital gains tax on a principal residence in Canada. As long as the cost of housing continues to rise, owners looking for other investments won’t find anything that compares with it. Why give that opportunity up?
With a world-wide obsession focused on home ownership over the last few decades, governments have neatly parked themselves between a rock (the national dream of home ownership) and a hard place (an ever-increasing affordable housing rental crisis, together with the social and physical costs of ensuing homelessness.)
Read more in The Tyee: BC and Ottawa Reject Changes to Reduce Inequality between Renters and Homeowners
