I'm sixty-one and this is my sixty-first installment of the Gratitude series. I am very grateful that I have lasted this long, in relatively good health and that I enjoy fairly decent living conditions. Here, in the world's third most expensive city, following Sidney, Australia and Hong Kong, I can still live in dignity in my small but very affordable little bachelor apartment. The available supply of government subsidized housing is still criminally scarce in this city. I am truly one of the lucky ones.
It would be even better without that bloody Tate tower going up behind my building. It has blocked out most of my view of the sky and the noise from the construction work really impacts on the quality of life in my neighbourhood. I would likely cut a little more slack if these were affordable, non-market rentals being built, but no. They have all, or almost all, been pre-sold, most of them to foreign interests for the purposes of investment and flipping. These are not homes, but investments. Adding insult to injury, not only does the noise and the sheer visible blight of this monstrosity make my neighbourhood less liveable, it is also a vile insult to those who suffer because of the housing crisis in Vancouver, those who have to move out of the city because it's unaffordable and to our many street homeless.
I often have to close my window because of this racket. I fear how that could affect things in the summer when it becomes really warm.
I remember having had a brief conversation with one particularly ignorant young woman,. If she has ever voted in her life it's likely been for the right-wing parties and their deplorable candidates. When I mentioned the inconvenience that construction noise causes in my neighbourhood she simply brayed like an undereducated donkey, "Well, people have to live somewhere." As if!
These eyesores have absolutely nothing to do with providing homes. They are investments for lining the pockets of developers, realtors and shadow flippers. It is absolutely egregious that our government leaders have allowed those bastards to buy them and in turn to sell the rest of us down the river in the name of foreign investment. Yes, great for the economy, but how often does the economy ever really serve the people, especially those of modest means and the desperately poor?
If those psychopathic monsters who build these ugly condo towers really want to do something to redeem themselves, here is where they could start:
By earmarking fifty percent of their units as rental housing. Fifty percent of those units have to be government subsidized to accommodate people living on low incomes where a rent of no higher than thirty percent of their monthly income would be legally imposed. Would this impoverish the developers? Not likely. They're already rolling in profits and they can easily afford to give back. Why don't they give back? Because they don't have to. However, if we keep organizing, then they are going to find that their very survival is going to depend on working cooperatively with the people who live in Vancouver, and this also includes our poorest residents. This can be done, and it is going to be done.
Don't think so? Well, that's what a lot of men said about women's suffrage and now half the current federal cabinet is made up of women. White folk, mostly men, also once said that about slavery. Oh, wait a minute, our neighbours south of the border just had eight years of Obama, arguably their best president since Kennedy.
Enjoy your profits, developers, because your days are numbered!
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