Eby says there are proposals at the federal level to sell public land and buildings to help solve the crisis, but B.C. is doing the opposite by taking inventory of provincially and municipally owned land in order to build more homes.
He told the BC Non-profit Housing Association’s annual conference his government is the right one to tackle the housing crisis as the province faces “huge challenges.”
Every dollar spent on housing is coming out of the pockets of taxpayers. It doesn’t make sense to bankrupt the government to try to house a few more people, because then everyone is going to be far worse off.
The housing mostly exists already or we’d have absolutely massive homeless populations (its less than 1%) its the price and allocation that is the problem.
Pricing problems can use alternative solutions. Raise property taxes on only the land by 10x, then return all of that money to every citizen equally. People who are using too much property for themselves will sell that off right quick to either a larger family or a developer. Congratulations you just made land cheaper everywhere and didn’t have to spend a single tax dollar.
We DO have a massive underhousing problem that you should be considering, not just homelessness. The only reason many tens of thousands of additional people aren’t homeless is that they are depending on the generosity and charity of people they know to give them a place to live.
We have more of a massive over housing problem than we do an underhousing problem.
There are far more couples living in 3+ bedroom houses than 4 person families living in 2 bedroom units.
The problem is distribution and pricing, not total units.
I am salivating at the thought, though honestly that seems even less likely than panic-building anything.
Or reuse some already-built housing. Large condo buildings cause gentrification; buy a portion of the units and make them affordable housing, below or non-market units. You save yourself the trouble and the building expenses, you can still raise taxes on ‘land-owners’ and you house people in dire need of housing. You also revitalize and degentrify areas. A lot of condos are owned as second-homes that are rented out, so the owners wont be unhoused. If they are concerned about loss of income, we all get together, push for raising taxes on the richest and on corporations and implement universal basic income.
(As an aside, a lot of buildings not-intended for housing that are not occupied can be repurposed as housing. We just need political will).