Housing & homelessness

Density, condos and housing affordability

Oct 16, 2014
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How is it that we have seen a non-stop construction boom in Vancouver over the past decade-plus and yet we still have huge homelessness and affordable housing problems? In the Figure, based on data from the BC Economic Accounts, it’s pretty clear that as a society we spend a lot building new housing. It varies cyclically but over the… View Article

An inadequate appeal process for tenants means a bumpy ride for everyone

Jan 24, 2013
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(Co-authored by Kendra Milne and Jess Hadley, staff lawyers at the Community Legal Assistance Society) Earlier this week, we read with interest Kathy Tomlinson’s January 21st CBC Go Public story, “Landlords ‘powerless’ as tenants get free ride”, which investigates one family of tenants who have apparently taken advantage of several successive landlords.  In her article,… View Article

Imbalance in residential tenancy rights enforcement in BC

Oct 25, 2012
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Yesterday some media outlets reported that the Residential Tenancy Branch has conditionally waived the first (and to my knowledge only) administrative penalty it has issued. BC’s Residential Tenancy Act was amended in 2006 to allow the Branch to issue administrative penalties, essentially monetary fines, against landlords or tenants that contravene the Act or repeatedly ignore… View Article

How to Destroy a Good Poverty Line

Feb 17, 2012
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[The following piece was authored by Michael Goldberg, Steve Kerstetter and Seth Klein] More than a decade ago, the federal and provincial governments started work on a new poverty line – the Market Basket Measure (MBM). After decades of distracting and divisive debates about poverty lines, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada crafted a methodology… View Article

Fighting energy poverty

Sep 28, 2011
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Today we released a new Climate Justice Project report, Fighting Energy Poverty in the Transition to Zero-Emission Housing: A Framework for BC, by yours truly, Eugene Kung (a lawyer with the BC Public Interest Advocacy Centre and a steering committee member of the CJP) and Jason Owen (who worked on this project as a student at UBC, now with… View Article

Social Determinants of Health

Jun 7, 2011
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It is now clear that economic, and social variables – more than individual behaviour – are the most salient factors in determining people’s well-being. Working and living conditions, the distribution of wealth, and where we live are some of , “the primary factors that shape the health of Canadians” (CCPA Monitor, June 2010). Almost everything… View Article