Closing The Divide, 10

Given the huge sense of entitlement that most Canadians live with I am amazed that we have made even this much social progress. There is always that tension, that friction between left and right, between progressives and conservatives (and, no, Gentle Reader, there is no such thing as a Progressive-Conservative, that is a beautiful political fiction conjured by certain less obnoxious members of the Canadian right as a not very effective vote-grabber). Home owners remain a problem because they have wealth, power and influence, which comes with owning property. They are generally happy little burghers who expect the status quo to dance to their little tune because they, being home owners, have, well, wealth, power and influence. This remains an almost permanent obstacle to our moving forward because it is one of the clearest markers of social inequality. I can think of two possible solutions, and no one is going to be happy, but here goes: either we can make home ownership equally available to all people, regardless of their income or investment portfolio. Even for people on social assistance or disability pensions. The formula would be very simple and the banks would lose one of their big cash cows. Legislation would have to be imposed guaranteeing that no one earning below a certain income would have to pay more than thirty percent of their income for housing. Housing provision would have to be radically overhauled and reorganized, making landlords basically unnecessary, and instead, housing facilitators, specially trained and employed on civic provincial and federal levels. Apartment building managers as we know them tend to be poorly trained and poorly educated, and are usually unskilled at dealing with a large swathe of the community. What I am recommending is that the specially training and qualifications required in most types of supportive housing would be also relevant and helpful on all levels of housing provision. Every rental unit, now made universally affordable, could also be open to purchase on the model of rent-to-buy, not much different from paying a mortgage, but the government would have to accept going into business as a universal landlord, and every renter would have the option of staying long enough in their place, no longer at risk of renovictions, to eventually own, or have title to the apartment or house they are living in. Of course the shrill screams of outrage from the real estate industry, the banks, the developers and many equity fat home-owners would drown out all logic and reason and even the faintest suggestion of leveling the playing field would be tossed into the landfill by our paid-off legislators. I still think this option needs to be considered, and advocated, and once we get it through our thick heads that housing is a universal human right, then perhaps there will be a little bit better than a snowball`s chance in hell. the other option? That we all turn into renters, that home ownership as we know it be abolished and we all become renters, or leasers, with the government playing landlord. One way or the other, we have to work towards social and economic equality, but this business of high-end home ownership for the privileged, inadequate social housing for the vulnerable, and everyone else sweating it out between renovictions is only going to get worse, and the huge social fallout from chronic inequality is going to make this lovely city of ours unliveable and very ugly.