Portrait of a Renoviction: Ellen Woodsworth’s story

Former city councilor Ellen Woodsworth speaks about her experience not only as a personal loss, but also as another casualty in Vancouver’s diminishing affordable housing stock

When former Vancouver city councilor Ellen Woodsworth saw the For Sale sign go up in front of the row house that she and her partner had occupied for over 30 years, she saw an opportunity. It was August 2011, only shortly before the municipal election, and Woodsworth thought that she might get some friends together in order to buy and maintain the six units of what she describes as “really good affordable housing.” The house had been built in 1918 and Woodsworth wanted to fix it up. “Not much work has been done on it, it’s pretty run down.”

However, by October, the owner of the row houses was seriously negotiating with another buyer, and the sale was completed in December. Due to the time constraints and the pressures of campaigning, Woodsworth was unable to enact her plan.

Shortly after the sale in December, the new owners began fixing up some of the other units, and Woodsworth began asking what their plans were, as she was concerned about the future of her home.

Finally on June 19th , two days before she and her partner had planned to leave on vacation, Woodsworth got an answer. “They put an eviction notice through our mailbox, which is actually not the legal way to do it… legally you have to give it to people in person.”

Neil R. Smith 1954 – 2012

The world has lost a key thinker and an inspirational person. The geographer Neil Smith passed away in New York early in the morning of September 29th, 2012. Neil’s work on uneven development, the production of nature, gentrification, and neoliberalism provide a crucial map for academics, activists and anyone interested in social justice and the city. Neil was a prolific writer and editor. His engaging writing is marked by its analysis, its humour, and its conviction. His Uneven Development: Nature, Capital and the Production of Space (1984/2010), New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City (1996), and The Endgame of Globalization (2005) are all books that have pushed critical thinking forward while being useful books that would have a place on anyone’s bookshelf.

Neil lived and worked in New York and Toronto, but he also has a strong Vancouver connection: in the photograph above, Neil is giving a community talk that was organized by the Downtown Neighbourhood Council, VIVO, and Urban Subjects at the Japanese Language School in Vancouver in the spring of 2011. Neil’s intellectual and community generosity were boundless — on that visit to Vancouver he talked on three venues, culminating in a packed talk at VIVO where he elaborated his new work on the revolutionary imperative. His ongoing engagement with Vancouver included an essay in Stan Douglas: Every Building on 100 West Hastings (2003) and A Manifesto for the Poetry of the Future (2011).

Mayor’s Task Force avoids widely accepted definition of ‘affordability’

This article was originally posted on thecityfm.org

Mayor Gregor Robertson’s Task Force on housing affordability avoided using Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s (CMHC) definition of “affordable housing” in its recently-released final report. The report, entitled “Bold Ideas for an Affordable City,” instead opts for a flexible and vague definition of housing affordability.

In the glossary (page 40) of the task force’s final report, “affordable housing” is defined as housing that:

can be provided by the City, government, non-profit, community and for-profit partners. It can be found or developed along the whole housing continuum, and include SROs, market rental and affordable home ownership. The degree of housing affordability results from the relationship between the cost of housing and household income. It is not a static concept, as housing costs and incomes change over time.

This definition stands in contrast to the widely accepted definition provided by the CMHC:

The cost of adequate shelter should not exceed 30% of household income. Housing which costs less than this is considered affordable. However, consumers, housing providers and advocacy organizations tend to use a broader definition of affordability.

The Mayor’s Task Force is attempting to argue that affordability is not a “static concept,” as quoted in the above glossary excerpt. Housing affordability is based on household income, which, yes does indeed change based on income level over time. But none of this changes the fact that the dominant definition of affordability is static at 30% of household income.

Mayor Uses Affordability Task Force to Deregulate and Privatize Housing

Yesterday Vision Vancouver released its final report on Housing Affordability in Vancouver. Shortly after being elected for a second term, Vision created an Affordability Task Force to address issues of housing affordability. The high-profile Task Force was co-chaired by the Mayor and right wing millionaire developer Olga Ilich, a former member of Gordon Campbell’s cabinet. The remaining members were comprised of fourteen Vision appointees drawn from the development industry: prominent developers, landlord lobbyists and industry insiders. Not a single renter or renter representative was appointed to the Task Force, despite the fact that renters — making up 55% of the city’s population — are the worst affected by the housing crisis.

For a long time Vancouver elites have struggled to square the circle of how to produce housing affordability without negatively affecting developer profits and property owners’ interests. The Task Force has proved no different in encountering this clash between ideal and reality, vexed by the challenge of balancing profitability with public anger about the housing crisis. That contradiction is the sharp rock upon which the Task Force is now shipwrecked. Despite Olga Ilich’s statement that “the biggest cost in Vancouver is the cost of land,” the Mayor admitted yesterday to the Province that he “doesn’t see the affordability plan having a broad impact on land values in Vancouver.”

The final recommendations of the Task Force show little advance from the neoliberal recommendations offered in the interim recommendations of last March. The first, and arguably the most disastrous for deregulating the private housing market, is a recommendation that planners abandon the city’s Inclusionary Zoning requirements. “The City’s current inclusionary zoning policy requires developers to set aside 20% of land for affordable housing,” the report states. “While this approach creates the opportunity for affordable housing development…a different approach will be needed to deliver affordability.”

Current city by-laws require 20% non-market housing in all new large-scale development projects, as well as in the DEOD (Downtown Eastside Oppenheimer District). This year, however, inclusionary zoning policies have already been flouted by major city council decisions, including 800 Griffiths Way, “market rent” social housing at 955 East Hastings, and the decision to rent “social housing” for $900 per month at Sequel 138 Pantages redevelopment. The Task Force recommendation goes a step further in pushing council to put the deregulation approach into writing, thereby further lowering the bar for maintaining safeguards against privatization. The Mainlander has warned as far back as January 2011 that Vision Vancouver was planning to remove inclusionary zoning in Vancouver. This proposal will only make Vancouver more unaffordable for the long-term.