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This is why we need Vacancy Control, rent control on the unit not on the individual tenant. Without it, the speculative market for rental apartment buildings is booming. 1/ https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/rental-housing-investment-feature @YVRTenantsUnion #vanpoli #bcpoli #HousingForAll
In Montreal, they've implemented Right of First Refusal for the City to buy rental buildings when they go up for sale. In Berlin, there's a mass movement to expropriate more than 100,000 units that used to be non-market but were privatized. 2/
We need mechanisms like this in Vancouver in order to get more rental housing units out of the market and safe from the predatory, investor capitalists described in this article. Without real rent control, these buildings will remain overvalued due to speculation. /3
This is a big deal: "BC's Non-Profit Housing Association & Co-Op Federation have a proposal for what they call “a made-in-BC solution' to the problem...the groups have begun talks with the provincial government to outline a proposal for a $500M capital fund from the province" 4/
"The idea is to enable non-profits to buy apartment buildings when they come up for sale and preserve them as affordable non-profit homes, before institutional investors can acquire them as profit-generating assets." Now we're talking... 5/
Note: $500M public financing is still a drop in the bucket towards solving the problem. And without real rent control (vacancy control) the market remains speculatively inflated and so non-profits can't acquire as many buildings/units. 6/
Final thought: If goal is to prevent speculation on "profit-generating assets" these principles need to be applied to land, the #1 asset for rent-seeking behaviour. (rent-seeking meaning profiting while producing nothing of value, ie. sitting on a mansion or empty plot.) 7/
In other words the principle of using public financing to decommodify housing is sound, and let's extend it to land and expand rental & non-market housing options in low density neighbourhoods.
Apologies for the Saturday morning thread ;) 8/
Apologies for the Saturday morning thread ;) 8/
