After 16 years of despair under a too often far right-of-centre B.C. Liberal government where, in their final full year in office, 120 children died in the care of the province, while another 791 children in care were critically injured — all while the Christy Clark government left a $2.7 billion surplus for what would turn out to be an incoming BC NDP government — whether it was Gordon Campbell or Clark, the B.C. Liberal government proved day in and day out that they were dedicated not to the interests of the people of British Columbia (and certainly not the most vulnerable among us), but to the monied corporate titans and financial backers who, working collectively, built barely one unit of affordable housing amidst an unprecedented and ever worsening housing crisis in Canada’s third largest city and region.
Whether it’s the B.C. Liberals — as they’re presently constituted (VanRamblings awaits the day when Vancouver City Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung is leader of the party, and Premier, to redefine fiscally and socially responsible, nominally right-of-centre government in B.C.) — or Andrew Scheer’s ultra-conservative Conservative party, make no mistake, right-of-centre parties & politicians are rarely on the side of the 95% of Canadians who earn less than $100,000 a year, which is to say not on your side.
BC NDP Government Has Built, or Will Build, 20,000 Affordable Homes in BC in 2019 | A Further 94,000 Homes Are on Their Way
Here’s the link to detail on the BC Homes graphic B.C. Housing Minister Selina Robinson presents above, including indigenous, community, student, regional, supportive, affordable rental and other housing currently completed, or under construction, in B.C.
Whether it be Chris Gailus and Global BC, the news team at CTV Vancouver, or as the local paper of record, the Vancouver Sun — or the Globe and Mail, or their even further right-of-centre brethren at the National Post — make no mistake, you’re not going to turn on your TV, pick up a local newspaper or surf to their online sites and read about the 20,000 affordable housing homes that have been completed, or are in process of being completed, in 2019, during the next year, or in early 2021.
God knows that corporate-owned media — none of which endorsed the BC NDP in 2017 — are interested in the least in reporting out to you the news that really matters: that in British Columbia citizens have a government in Victoria that actually cares about working people, and is committed to the realization of the construction and completion of 114,000 affordable homes, $10-a-day child care, and the construction of 24-hour-a-day, open and accessible urgent care centres in every municipality across B.C. — more than 780,000 British Columbians (that’s almost 17% of the population) don’t have a family doctor, the previous Liberal government abandoning their plan to link every person to a doctor by 2015 as “unachievable”.
Construction on this 109-unit affordable rental building to be completed in early 2021. Location: 3185 Riverwalk Avenue, in the East Fraserlands area of Vancouver.
Funded by the British Columbia government under their Deepening Affordability Fund, this past December B.C. Housing Minister Selina Robinson announced the construction of 109 low-cost, affordable homes at 3185 Riverwalk Avenue in the East Fraserlands area of Vancouver — a five-storey project that will offer 7 studios, 30 one-bedroom, 48 two-bedroom & 24 three-bedroom homes + a shared amenity space — for seniors, families & those on fixed incomes, not a social, but an affordable rental, housing project, where tenants will pay no more than 30% of their income in rent.
Click on this link, and scroll down to the Deepening Affordability Fund section for more information on 490 more homes being built through the fund in Burnaby, Kamloops, Saanich, Port Alberni, Terrace and Courtenay.
In addition, by clicking on the link you will find detail on homes being built under the Supportive Housing Fund, as well as the Rapid Response to Homelessness, the Regional Housing First and the Student Loan Housing programmes, the Indigenous Housing Fund & the two projects being built as part of the Housing Hub programme, for a total of 20,000 new homes.
Construction of 231 low-cost, affordable homes at 58 West Hastings underway.
In March of this year, the B.C. government provided a list of 25 affordable housing projects, currently under construction in Vancouver, to Vancouver Courier civic affairs journalist Mike Howell — a total of 2,450 new affordable rental homes, including a $14.8 million, 74-unit project at 6390 Crown Place that will be operated by the Musqueam Indian Band, and a $90 million 231-unit project at 58 West Hastings that will be operated — including $30 million in funding — by the Vancouver Chinatown Foundation.
The bottom line: all is not lost, there is a government in Victoria that is on our side, and although the provincial government may not be moving fast enough for some on their election promises, remember (as folks were wont to say in times past): “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
The same very well might be said about our current Vancouver City Council, each of whom VanRamblings knows well, and who we know to be persons of grit, integrity & social responsibility who are also very much on our side.
If by 2022 (the next civic election) Vancouver City Councillors have not followed through on their commitment to the alleviation of the affordable housing crisis, they will become — as some have written — a one-term civic government, replaced by Councillors who can get the job done.
But you only have to know Christine Boyle, Lisa Dominato, Sarah Kirby-Yung, Pete Fry, Rebecca Bligh, Michael Wiebe, Jean Swanson, Colleen Hardwick, Adriane Carr and Melissa De Genova to know that this remarkably capable and utterly unique group of change makers are not about to let you down, that they’re on the case, with their heads screwed on straight and much sooner than later, they’ll come through for all of us.
