You may have caught wind of the District of No Vancouver’s — how shall we say — odd approach to doing their part on the region’s housing issue.
Young people, seniors, low and fixed-income folks are struggling to live near services, employment and schools. Without sufficient or reasonable housing options in town centres and near transit, these vulnerable segments of our society are not just experiencing the stress of housing insecurity, they’re getting pushed out.
DNV is quite simply saying no to efforts to accommodate people in need. Repeatedly. Over and over again.
But Councillor Jim Hanson of team “No Vancouver” (pssst….this domain is available) has a solution.
Since it doesn’t look good to say no to people in need of housing, try saying yes, but in a different way. As in — “Yes, we’d like to give housing to people in need. We’ll just take it away from others.”
In agenda item 9.4 for this upcoming Monday’s regular meeting of council (April 1, naturally), Councillor Hanson recommends directing staff to prepare a policy that would prioritize District-owned rental housing for non-profit organizations.
The implication is clear — rather than approve the development of new non-market housing developments to serve people in need, Councillor Hanson believes it would be wiser to evict people currently in secure, government-owned rental housing, so that this housing can be given to non-profit organizations serving…people in need of housing.
Not even a renoviction. A politiviction.
It bears mentioning that during the 2018 municipal election campaign, Councillor Hanson produced a number of videos where he spent one minute talking about the issues of the day. And yes, one such video was on development and housing.
Indeed, one minute seems to be the amount of time he spent thinking about development and housing, in advance of a second term on DNV council.
Will this result in yet another disastrous vote in the district’s housing file? Stay tuned.
It’s safe to say that if there’s a wrong decision that this Council will make, they will not disappoint. Mr. Hanson’s motion is truly special and shows that, like a sheriff’s election in Texas, the race to the bottom is well under way in North Vancouver. Thank you for highlighting this item.
Most occupants of subsidized housing need it———Some don t’—- Others needed it when they moved in —- but not now—- There are low income workers who are couch surfing because they can t afford market rent——- Voting down social housing to preserve a parking lot is in Monty Phython or Yes Minister territory
Having attended virtually every DNV in the last 25 years I can honestly say that this article bends (if not breaks) the true facts about councils rejection of some recent affordable rental projects. Not only were these proposals contrary to the Official Community Plan (being far too high for housing outside of the Town Centres), but there was no Provincial or Federal funds in place to support the required low rents that would be needed.