AFFORDABLE HOUSING 'Splendour Without Diminishment‘

BY STEVEN KATONA

A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE ON AFFORDABLE HOUSING

WESTERN EUROPEAN: NORTH AMERICAN:

• “Laissez-faire” urbanization

• “Favoured Quarters”• “Trolly Dodgers”• “Segregated, Isolated”• “Ghettos & Slums”

• Edwin Chadwick’s “Golden Age”

• England’s 1848 public health act

• England’s 1838 “Poor laws”

1800’S WESTERN EUROPEAN Reforms:

Understanding the urgency for urban reform was needed after the outbreak of disease and other disasters that could have been prevented with sound intervention by state authorities. In England the response from the British legal system was founded upon the recommendations of the 1842 report entitled “ Report of the poor law commissioners concerning the sanitary condition of the labouring population of Great Britain”. This ground-breaking document provided the basis for the new governmental regulations that would curb the spread of disease in poor districts throughout England.

NORTH AMERICAN AFFORDABLE HOUSING 1800’S -1900’SBy the 1800’s the United States urban centers were few and scattered on coastal locations. The city of New York consolidated Manhattan, The Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island. During this time the 3.5 million inhabitants lived in blighted, degraded tenements. In 1871, George Pullman created the town of ‘Pullman’, where 8000 inhabitants lived in prosperity before the ensuing recessions and layoffs. By 1894 the resulting strikes and labour actions provoked the first use of American federal troops to quell the rebellion. By 1960 this community was now inhabited by Yuppies on the outskirts of Chicago.

TODAY’S CANADIAN PERSPECTIVE:

As of 2007, the special envoy from the United Nations gave Canada a scolding record on the right to an adequate standard of living. The government of Canada failed to provide the statistics towards the amount of homeless there actually is in Canada along with the dismal display of concern towards the achievement of eliminating the disparities between ‘rich and poor’ among its citizens. According to Miloon Kothari, the U.N. Special Rapporteur for Housing, on his trip to Vancouver British Columbia quoted, “There seems to be a disconnect between the economic policies in Vancouver and the social policies that need to be in place”. In addition, Miloon commented, “It's glaringly apparent in Vancouver that for quite some time... successive governments have failed to create the housing that is necessary. You have a legacy of misguided government policy that has led to this massive crisis in housing and homelessness”.

CROWN RESPONSIBILITIES

PROVINCIAL OBLIGATIONS:

• Housing Matters BC • In 1997 Canada Mortgage and Housing

Corporation began to turn control of existing federal social housing programs over to the provinces and territories. CMHC did so by means of a social housing agreement signed with one province or territory at a time. CHF (Co-operative Housing Federation) Canada believes this agreement is as problematic as the strategy of devolution itself.

FEDERAL OBLIGATIONS:• Why do our governments no longer fund adequate

housing for anyone, including the poor? Housing is a "land use" issue. Governments can now be sued if they provide housing that competes with the private sphere.

• We must get out of the FTA and NAFTA. All we have to do is give 6 months notice. But, the Liberals, Conservatives, BQ ,NDP and the Greens refuse to give notice. They refuse to say no to developers.

• Why? One, they now fear their government will be sued for lots of money. Two, their ideology now is to serve the elite , not the people. Three, their own greed. After their term of office they are rewarded with cushy profitable positions in corporate boardrooms and do very nicely thank you very much. No sleeping on the streets for them.

• The Canadian Action Party says: 1) Get out of FTA and NAFTA. Give the 6 months notice now. 2) Get back to the use of the Bank of Canada to supply the money needed..3) Restore the power to the people.

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN BRITISH COLUMBIA?

HOMELESS & POVERTY?

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbH-prELwwc

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUTFex58urM

AFFORDABLE HOUSING?• Housing Matters BC, an innovative and

comprehensive housing strategy to help British Columbians access affordable housing, was unveiled by Minister Responsible for Housing Rich Coleman today. “This strategy will immediately assist approximately 15,000 low-income working families and homeless individuals,” said Coleman. “It’s also a new direction for housing, designed to provoke discussion about long-term solutions. We can only address homelessness and housing affordability if we all work together – long-term solutions require the co-operation of all levels of government, as well as organizations and volunteers dedicated to housing.”

• the Province’s budget for shelters and affordable housing is $218 million – nearly double what it was in 2001. By 2008, spending will increase to $250 million.

CONCLUSION"Those Heroic Days"

• We demand a clear disclosure of the country's economic situation. We shall not be able to emerge from this crisis unless all workers, peasants, and intellectuals can play their proper part in the political, social, and economic administration of the country.

• Workers! We must put it frankly: the question now is whether we want a socialist democracy or a bourgeois democracy.

• The present humiliating system of wages and norms, and the disgraceful condition of social security benefits, etc. must be reformed

• We recommend a protest strike lasting a maximum of two or three days. It should be one that extends over all areas of life, expressing a discipline and commitment