Park Ex tenants must leave social housing
Tenants of Park Extension social housing are being told to leave because their building needs repairs that may take years, and they’re not guaranteed to find homes in the area.
Not for the first time, there are reports that one third of the city’s social housing units are in poor shape, 400 of them boarded up because judged uninhabitable. (The headline here says one third, but the lede says two thirds.) I have no idea whether it would be better value to fix these buildings, or tear them down and start over from scratch. Either way, given the shortage of labour and materials, neither would be easy.
Ephraim 17:14 on 2022-06-19 Permalink
This is why we might be better off paying landlords directly to subsidize social housing rather than having the city run it. It’s expensive for a city to run and they don’t have the expertise. And clearly if they haven’t done the maintenance, they are proving the point. Vancouver pays the landlords and holds the landlords accountable for repairs and maintenance. It’s an expensive contract to lose and there are lots of REITs who are interested in such contracts with the city as it guarantees long term income.
SMD 11:00 on 2022-06-20 Permalink
Park Ex tenants held a rally against evictions on Saturday, CBC notes that even the few buildings that the city has acquired for social housing there are still sitting empty. Le Devoir reveals today that shovel-ready projects in Park Ex and Côte-des-Neiges are on hold as the city and province bicker over the financing.
Robert H 12:14 on 2022-06-20 Permalink
@Ephraim, La méthode de Vancouver semble être une bonne politique. Peut-être que notre conseil municipal, contrairement à l’assemblée nationale, ne serait pas trop fier d’apprendre un truc du Canada anglais ?
Ephraim 16:02 on 2022-06-20 Permalink
@Robert H – Milton Friedman: “The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.”
What’s the basic premise? Stick to your own business… well, running apartment buildings isn’t the government’s business… and well… they do it badly. Why should we have expected any less?
Kate 17:48 on 2022-06-20 Permalink
Ephraim, couldn’t the government spawn a housing authority? The city already has one.
Ephraim 22:25 on 2022-06-20 Permalink
It has one… it does a horrible job at it too.
Bell Canada (Enterprises) thought that they were such GREAT managers they could buy anything and run it profitably…. like Montreal Trust. They bought a 64% interest for $547M and sold it 4 years later for $290M…. because they ran it so well.
There are lots of such cases. Sometimes the best thing to do is simply hire someone who knows how to do it professionally and pay them their due. It’s faster and in the long run easier to just pay someone to install a new bathroom than to learn plumbing, electrical and carpentry.