Supporting Social Housing

Speaking to Council in Support of the Social Housing Initiative Titles: Welcome to My Blog! or Welcome to My World or Welcome to (Blog Name)

On November 27, I spoke to Vancouver City Council in support of the Social Housing Initiative — a proposal grounded in over three years of staff analysis and designed to Speaking to Council in Support of the Social Housing Initiativemake non-market housing faster and more affordable, with greater project certainty. You can also watch a short overview of my perspective here.

As a Strathcona resident and a lawyer who has spent years providing legal representation to low-income renters navigating Residential Tenancy issues, I’ve seen the impacts of the housing crisis firsthand. For many Vancouver residents, the lack of affordable, stable housing is not just an inconvenience — it is pushing them further and further out of the city they call home.

That’s why I spoke in favour of the Social Housing Initiative. This proposal represented a pragmatic, evidence-based tool to address housing scarcity that would allow limited resources to go further in a city facing mounting affordability pressures.

Structured specifically to help deliver non-market homes with greater project certainty, the Social Housing Initiative would help attract the funding that these projects urgently need from senior levels of government — something Council has repeatedly emphasized as essential to addressing the housing crisis in Vancouver. In that sense, the initiative directly responds to Council’s own stated priorities.

Council ultimately voted the proposal down, with ABC holding the majority of seats.

One of the concerns raised in Council discussions was the idea that Vancouver may be taking on more than its “fair share” of social housing compared to other municipalities. If we are going to have that conversation, it is also worth looking honestly at how social housing is distributed within Vancouver itself.

Currently, approximately 45 per cent of all social housing units in Vancouver are located in the downtown peninsula, the Downtown Eastside, and Strathcona. Meanwhile, neighbourhoods such as Kerrisdale and West Point Grey have virtually no social housing to speak of. That imbalance is not sustainable, nor is it equitable.

City Council is elected to represent all Vancouverites. That means recognizing that the people who keep our city running — including teachers, seniors, firefighters, retail workers, and city staff — deserve the opportunity to live in the communities they serve. Our policies should both send the message and create the reality that everyone is welcome in every neighbourhood.

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