6118894228_b452d8ee40_o

In 2008 Vision Vancouver was elected on a platform to end homelessness and build affordable housing. After three years of NPA rule, Vision was supposed to be the progressive alternative to NPA’s developer-friendly politics at City Hall. Today many Vancouverites feel they were given a raw deal. Basic affordability has worsened and homelessness is higher than when Vision started. What was promised as a political “paradigm shift” turned out to be one of the most aggressively pro-corporate, tax-cutting municipal governments seen in the history of Vancouver.

Now yet another ‘new’ party is appealing to people who are frustrated with corporate-class civic politics and want to see real change. David Chudnovsky and RJ Aquino, former COPE politicians, yesterday announced the formation of OneCity. Some progressives have expressed tentative optimism about the announcement, while some Vision backers have also endorsed the party.

deportations-separations

Calling for a moratorium on migrant workers first, and then paying partial lipservice to some permanent immigration system is a de facto call for mass exclusion of people of colour. If we truly believed in equal access for people irrespective of their racialization and impoverishment, we would first ensure full immigration status for all before shutting down the program that gives a toehold to some.

IMG_0754photo by Erica Holt

The last decade has been an era of broken housing promises in Vancouver. Whether it is the undelivered housing legacy of Vancouver 2010, the sell-off of the Olympic Village, the ultimate watering down of the Woodward’s promises, or the Mayor’s undelivered promise to end homelessness by 2014, few if any housing promises have gone unbroken.

If Vancouver city councillors get their way next week, an affordable family housing complex in central Vancouver – Heather Place – will be demolished and replaced with mostly expensive market housing. That will count as another serious broken housing promise, because to date Vancouver city councillors have committed to replacing the affordable housing at Heather Place.

The official Heather Place policy report was released to the public last month, revealing that – despite promises – the 86 units of affordable housing at Heather Place will not be replaced on a one-for-one basis.