-- Download Vancouver's 'Progressive' Council and Housing as PDF --

Vancouver’s City Council is occasionally lauded as ‘progressive,’ and the ruling party – Vision Vancouver – takes significant pride in trumpeting their work on affordable housing as evidence of such. But then they go and define “affordable rent” for a 1-bedroom apartment at $1,500.

And today’s quote from Geoff Meggs is fascinating:

Meggs dismisses Antrim’s ideas as infeasible. Allowing tenants back into renovated suites without extraordinary rent increases, he says, would unfairly force landlords to lose money. “I don’t think anybody, regardless of their perspective on rents, can afford to renovate a home and not pay off that renovation somehow,” he reasons.

That’s right. It would be unfair to force a landlord, who might have evicted someone so that they could repaint the walls, to triple the rent. Depriving them of income is unfair. Depriving someone of affordable housing isn’t, apparently.

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kevin harding

Kevin is a cooperator, an always-student, and passionate about the arts. As a principal of the Incipe Cooperative, Kevin works with colleagues in a workers' co-op offering services for advocacy and nonprofit organizations. He's passionate about education policy, having been through twenty some-odd years of schooling and still thinking it changes the world. He also thinks that art changes the world, and he works with Art for Impact to celebrate art's power for social change. A Vancouver born and raised resident who is exiled from Toronto, he constantly loses umbrellas and probably rants too much.

Latest posts by kevin harding (see all)

• On Ghomeshi - October 29, 2014
• Resistance is Futile: Steveston, Developers, PR flacks, and the Borg - April 7, 2014
• Vancouver’s ‘Progressive’ Council and Housing - December 17, 2013