1/30/2024 0 Comments Stars beyond reach the federation![]() It was a little distressing to realize on a recent rewatch that the crew had traveled back to 2024 - a nearer future than I was expecting when I'd pressed play.Īnd while the U.S. Thanks to a classic bit of time-travel mumbo jumbo, the season-three episode was mostly set in the characters' pasts. ![]() While the federal government may want to shortchange people experiencing the housing crisis, there are clearly a wealth of ways in which we can continue to tackle one of the greatest challenges of our time.The show went deep on that exploration in its two-part episode "Past Tense," which first aired in 1995. This would provide an immediate and significant increase in the supply of affordable housing. The most cost-effective, rapid, and greenest solution to the housing crisis is to require financialized landlords to convert a percentage of existing units across their portfolios into social housing and commit to maintaining that percentage in future developments, at their own expense - a condition of profit-seeking in an area that is a human right. The private sector must also put its resources behind its commitment to housing solutions. Without spending, provincial and territorial governments could have a significant impact on the housing crisis by implementing rent freezes, eviction moratoriums, and vacancy control, to stem the tide of people losing their homes and falling into homelessness. To meet the housing challenge, municipalities should be supported to develop less carbon and cost intensive solutions, such as repurposing vacant units, short-term rentals, and stranded assets like office buildings and creating community land trusts. Canada will blow through its carbon budget should it build 2.3 million homes by 2030, as CMHC has recommended. Considering Canada’s already heavy carbon footprint, and the country’s commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050, we have no choice but to reimagine just how much new housing supply the planet can afford, while still meeting our climate commitments. Greenhouse gas emissions caused by the construction of housing is a significant driver of climate change. ![]() This might produce results that are not just more expeditious, but that are also greener - something rarely considered in most supply-oriented housing strategies. So, what can be done? There’s no choice but to be more creative and consider lower-cost solutions that rely less on the mega-budgets required to build new housing. Perhaps it became spending-shy in light of the auditor-general’s recent finding that the government didn’t know if the $6 billion in spending meant to address housing need had actually benefited anyone. The federal government seems to be throwing up its hands in self-defeat. It also did nothing to address the financialization of housing, even though the government acknowledges financialized landlords have engaged in “excessive renovictions, above-guideline rent increases, and other actions that have made rent more expensive,” all of which runs afoul of human rights. Budget 2023 is no exception.īudget 2023 provided no new money for programs designed to “solve” the housing crisis and did not allocate any significant money to build new affordable housing. Yet every opportunity following this historic commitment has revealed that the federal government is neither committed nor has the know-how to address the housing and homelessness crisis. This is why the prime minister himself committed to implementing housing as a human right, passed into legislation in 2019. Housing insecurity and homelessness undermine dignity and are a matter of life and death. ![]() The budget’s scant efforts to address housing unaffordability and homelessness received widespread critique from The Office of the Federal Housing Advocate, The Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, the Aboriginal Housing Management Association, and the National Right to Housing Network, among others. Those who care about all this have come out swinging. It was an odd decision to leave housing off the budget, given the facts on the ground: homelessness is on the rise across the country, rental accommodation is increasingly unaffordable, made worse by the corporate concentration of ownership, which continues to scale, and home ownership is now beyond reach for most average earners. As the prime minister travels the country to convince people Budget 2023 will make life more affordable, he won’t be talking about the single biggest expense for most families: housing.
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