Housing & homelessness

A Paradigm Shift is Happening

Nov 21, 2010
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A “paradigm shift” was the theme of Dr. Marti Glenn, one of the keynote speakers at the 2010 International Congress of The Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology & Health, which took place from November 11-14 at Asilomar, California. Dr. Glenn, who is the Dean of the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute, began by saying that,… View Article

Poverty Reduction: Even Alberta?

Sep 27, 2010
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Currently, six provinces have official poverty reduction strategies either in place or (in the case of Manitoba) in development. BC, despite having the highest poverty rates, remains stubbornly in the minority of provinces without a plan (along with Alberta, Saskatchewan and PEI). But now comes news earlier this month that an all-party committee of the… View Article

Our priorities for BC Budget 2011

Sep 17, 2010
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On September 15, I presented CCPA-BC’s recommendations for BC Budget 2011 at the Vancouver BC Budget Consultation public hearing. Take a look at my presentation slides for a brief overview of our take on BC’s current budget situation and economic outlook, and our advice for leading the province’s recovery…. View Article

Vancouver’s poverty rate leads country

Apr 5, 2010
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Thanks to Jean Swanson for drawing to my attention a new report from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities called Mending Canada’s frayed social safety net: The role of municipal governments. The report looks at key social indicators in 24 Canadian municipalities, and contains some stark findings for Vancouver. Jean summarizes these in a blog post… View Article

BC’s Urban Housing (Un)affordability

Jan 25, 2010
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A new study published today by the Frontier Institute for Public Policy finds that Vancouver has the most unaffordable urban housing market not just in Canada, but in all of Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. This conclusion is based on a very simple, yet effective measure of housing affordability:… View Article

A Modest Proposal

Jan 23, 2010
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At some point before long, Haiti is going to be rebuilt. It occurs to me that we in BC have available wood to help in the effort. Most things are built of concrete there because there simply isn’t any wood. Rebuilding out of concrete will be massively expensive and massively polluting. And, as Premier Campbell… View Article

Housing Solutions

Jan 2, 2010
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Just wanted to give our blog readers a plug for an excellent collection on housing solutions. Some of you have likely been following the Tyee’s excellent series of articles on housing and homelessness, written by Monte Paulsen. Now the Tyee has put that whole series together in a single pdf collection. You can find it… View Article

Poverty and BC’s high cost of housing

Dec 7, 2009
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BC Stats put out a release on poverty lines as they relate to BC, with an important finding: BC’s dubious position as having the highest poverty rates in Canada may in fact be worse than the statistics show. This finding is buried in the piece and the title, “Low Income Cut-Offs a Poor Measure of… View Article

Docs call for more attention to addiction

Apr 8, 2009
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The BC Medical Association released an important report at the end of March. The Vancouver Sun gave it good coverage, but overall it didn’t get the attention it deserved. Stepping Forward: Improving Addiction Care in BC raises a lot of issues worth talking about in an election. The report estimates there are 400,000 British Columbians… View Article