Playing politics with the housing crisis
By Ivan Morgan
The problem with housing is twofold. First and foremost, there are too many people chasing too few places, which has driven the price out of many people’s range.
The second problem is that housing is a political cesspool.
There was a minor fuss several weeks ago when some journalists and opposition politicians asked the newly elected and newly minted Housing Minister Fred Hutton if housing was a human right.
They were trying to portray the new minister as not being able to answer a simple “yes” or “no” question. He wouldn’t say either way. They know, and the minister knows, and his officials know, it’s far from a simple question. They were just playing politics.
Am I an expert in human rights? I worked for a private non-profit human rights organization for 15 years (that is to say my boss and I managed to keep the doors open for 15 years). So, I might know a thing or two. The issue of housing as a human right is tangly. Very tangly.
Housing may or not be a right – I am not going to debate that here – but it is definitely a commodity. And when demand increases so do prices, which leaves many people in a tough spot. In the last year I have met folks sleeping in tents in the woods, sleeping in their cars, or holed up on others’ couches. Why? They cannot find an affordable place to live.
Housing is also a necessity of life, especially in our northern climate. In a wealthy country like Canada every person deserves the basics: good food (another unobtainable commodity for many), a safe clean place to live, etc. That’s not up for debate. The debate is what to do about it and how to get there.
That’s where the cesspool part comes in.
Lots of people have lots of ideas about how to solve the problem, based primarily on their ideology. Some think government money is the answer (that’s our taxes and such). Some claim the free market will solve the housing crisis (which it hasn’t to date).
Some try to portray elected officials and their staffs as cold-hearted uncaring types, which of course they are not. (If you love irony, you will appreciate how some of the folks who demand housing be a basic human right at the same time want to shut down debate on the housing crisis. Seriously. You can’t make this stuff up.)
I am no housing expert, but I know it’s a complicated issue.
For example, I once worked for an MHA who represented a wealthy suburban district in the Northeast Avalon. Like most of these districts, he had many constituents with basement apartments, who rented them out to help pay their mortgages. Naturally, they wanted to get as much rent as they could.
He learned early on that any politician (or political party for that matter) fool enough to propose legislation which would cap how much they could charge would not be elected very long. So, forget legislated rent control. He’d have none of it.
Naturally neither government nor the Opposition are going to tell you this, but if they want to get elected . . .
We did have a housing solution. Once upon a time (1967) the government of the day created a Crown corporation – Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation – to deal with housing issues, specifically to build affordable housing. For better or worse that’s what they have been doing for coming up on 60 years. I’d like to know what motivated government to recently fold this corporation back into government. Housing has gone from a stand-alone Crown corporation to now being directly under government’s thumb. What’s the thinking there?
Meanwhile, while all this hifalutin debate surrounding housing takes place in the mainstream media and on social media, with folks bashing each other over the plight of poor people struggling to find a place out of the cold and rain, the actual homeless just want a home.
Take it from me. I’ve talked to many. They just want a place to live that’s safe, comfortable, and affordable.
The esoteric debate on whether housing is a human right is very interesting. I could write volumes arguing both sides of that issue. But from what I can tell, it is cold comfort to those who are, well, cold and uncomfortable.