The Tenant Movement in B.C. from 1968 to 1978

Most of the few remaining rights and affordable housing that tenants have in British Columbia were earned by working class activists and renters in the 1970s. This piece, written in 1981 by former housing activist and COPE City Councilor Bruce Yorke, provides some insight into the local past. It documents struggles that won tangible victories in the late ’60s and ’70s, while hinting at how new ground can be won today. In the context of unending evictions, a neoliberal municipal government, and a right-shifting provincial NDP under Adrian Dix, tenants must now more than ever take to the streets, organize buildings, and look land-owning interests straight in the eyes.

-Editors

The pioneer and leader of the tenants’ movement in B.C. was the Vancouver Tenant Council established in 1968. This was an individual membership organization with membership dues at $2.00 a year. The fees were used to set up an office with a phone.

In August, 1968, we held our first meeting of tenants. It was at the Driftwood apartment in Kitsilano. I took the initiative in calling that meeting. The main issue disturbing tenants was a 5% increase in rents imposed on very short notice, plus a rather insulting letter from Block Brothers.

The meeting was held at Kitsilano Beach. About 75 tenants attended. Alderman Harry Rankin was also there and gave us his support.

The media coverage of this meeting created a lot of interest and led to many telephone enquiries.

We didn’t win that battle but we did establish the fact that tenants were determined to get organized and make their voices heard.

A Response to Geoff Meggs

This is a response to a recent letter written by Geoff Meggs addressed to The Mainlander and the Vancouver Renters’ Union, in which he accused The Mainlander of “libel” among other things. The letter can be found here.

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Readers of The Mainlander know that we write about the ideology of neoliberalism and the urban politics of class, tied to a host of related issues that affect Vancouver: the privatization of housing, inequality, evictions, gentrification, speculation, land exploitation, rent gouging, displacement, and especially, a developer-backed city hall.

For two years we’ve written about these topics without stoking the personal rivalries that pre-date our involvement in politics and our birth as a publication (The Mainlander’s first article was on December 5, 2010). Then, as now, we have no interest in getting into a battle of personalities. Whether it’s Nathan Allen debating Charlie Demers, the cheap rhetoric of City Caucus, or Robertson himself calling community members “fucking NPA hacks,” Vancouver has been plagued by ad hominem politics. Since the split between Larry Campbell (“Cope Lite”/Vision) and Tim Louis (“Cope Classic”), the demonization and vilification of political opponents has been a mainstay.

The slinging of mud is ultimately a shortcut for those who want to avoid political debate. The opposite of mud-slinging, however, is not what Am Johal properly calls the “epidemic of politeness,” but rather the recognition that there is more to Vancouver’s 125 years of politics and economy than “key players” and talking heads. In fact, to understand Vancouver’s unique developer-industrial complex it helps to transplant a phrase from Geoff Meggs’ own letter: “It makes the decisions, not me.” Precisely. Our analysis is directed at the developer-backed system as a whole, held together by the pillars of the private developer monopoly, colonial land inheritance, and the role of the municipal state. As many readers know, both supporters and opponents, this is the framework that guides what we write.

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.

COLUMN | City Council sets sights on mega-development at 955 East Hastings

This article was originally posted at timlouis.ca

This week, City Councillors will be returning to City Hall from their summer break. One of the first orders of business will be to consider a large-scale condo development in the Downtown Eastside Hastings Corridor, directly across from the Raycam Community Centre and Stamp’s Place social housing.

The applicant for the project – Vision financial backer Wall Financial Group – is planning to build three 12-storey condo buildings on the site at 955 East Hastings Street. If approved, the project will total 352 units of housing. 282 of the units are proposed as market strata units, with the remaining 70 units planned as rental housing run and owned by the City of Vancouver as “social housing.”

As with the Sequel 138 project at Main and Hastings – where the city will be renting its social housing at a rate of $900/month – the majority of the 70 “social housing” units in this new Wall development will be well out of reach for low-income people. City staff are recommending to council that they rent the majority of these “social housing” units at market rates.