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LETTERS: Affordable housing failure in B.C.

Editor:
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Editor:

Re: ‘Imbalance’ at core of B.C. housing problem: analyst,” May 26

Dumbfounded, I read the above headline. No kidding? Who would have guessed?

Imbalance, meaning supply not meeting demand, has been the cause for decades. Nor with the NDP government is there any signs of improvement.

A while back, Horgan announced $10 billion towards home construction. However, that proved to be over 10 years and nearly simultaneously was forecast the arrival of 70,000 new B.C. residents during same period. Politics at its worst.

New construction would struggle to keep up with increased demand.

There is no affordable accommodation to be had. In fact, less so than ever before.

The statements of fact do not answer why. Who has benefited? Home-ownership has become a goldmine, renters are lemons to be squeezed, families are deprived of stability, security, dependable sanitation. Children are growing up under such circumstances. Meanwhile, governments rake in taxes based on much higher assessments.

Recently, a group tried to get building permit in our area for a structure with affordable apartments. The application was turned down. How many of the councillors voting, one might wonder, own either a house, condo or other property?

How many in various governments – city, county, provincial, national – determining affordable housing requirements, have personal, if conflicting, reasons for keeping stock low, but rents high?

Something is so shameful, so disgustingly asocial in the failure to meet demand with supply, specifically in the vital matter of affordable housing, that words fail to adequately express dismay.

Yet, how lucky that an analyst should come up with such a cute, neutral answer, “imbalance.”

Finn Schultz-Lorentzen, White Rock