ROBINSON: Where is BC's housing plan?

The federal and provincial governments recently announced that they are planning to purchase expensive empty condos and convert them to affordable housing because the buyer’s market has changed and developers are sitting with thousands of unsold housing stock.

The reaction was swift.

There are few details about how government would make these purchases and which communities would have this new housing — but there’s plenty of concern about potentially bailing out developers who were building for an investment market that was slowly disappearing.

There is now some back pedalling from both Prime Minister Mark Carney and Premier David Eby given the concern from the public.

The announcement to spend billions of dollars on market housing after the BC government declared that it is ‘re-pacing’ its community housing fund because they were out of money was especially rich. I can appreciate that housing that is already built might be appealing, but it appears that none of that repurposed housing will be in the metro Vancouver area because those homes would just be too expensive for government to purchase.

This "re-pacing" of the government affordable housing fund is effectively a cancellation of these projects, and there are dozens of these projects that have now been shelved. Many of these affordable housing fund projects rely on multiple partnerships in order to keep this housing affordable. These partnerships were developed over months after the government put out the calls for proposals last year.

Partners worked together in good faith — everyone brought something to the table, local governments, not for profit housing operators and the private sector. They hashed out details so that these projects could meet the needs of the communities they serve. They got the necessary approvals and were ready to go and then … the province announced that there was no money to fund these projects.

It’s not like you can just put the project on a shelf and pick it back up later. Partners move along, financial numbers change and all that time and money put into developing those proposals in the first place are now irrelevant. Talk about government waste!

The haphazardness of both these announcements is appalling. Putting out a call for proposals and then ‘re-pacing’ is about bad planning. Making an announcement to purchase and re-purpose empty condos without any details is also about bad planning… and now there is money for housing?

What is this government’s plan? Is there money for housing, or isn’t there?

When I became BC’s Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing in 2017, our housing problems were enormous. The previous BC Liberal government had limped along, poking at the edges of a runaway housing market, refusing to take any real action, barely building much by way of social and student housing and refusing to establish a fully functioning housing policy team in the Ministry and it appeared that no matter how the Liberal Premier shifted cabinet positions, the housing file always stayed with Rich Coleman. 

We knew that we were not going to solve BC’s unaffordable housing problems in one budget, or even in one election cycle. It took decades of inaction and poor policy choices to get to this problem, and it wasn’t going to resolve easily or quickly.

My team and I were tasked by Premier John Horgan to develop an action plan so that we could start to tackle the problem. I asked my team to bring together every component of the housing sector into the room for a world cafe experience that would engage all components of the housing sector and more importantly, that they can hear each other.

We believed that everyone has a role in helping to address a ‘very sticky’ problem. We had developers, housing advocates, academics, local government representatives, builders, planners, First Nations leaders, social housing operators and the real estate sector sitting at small group tables all interacting with each other. (Sidebar - if I was doing this again I would have had representation from the banking sector in the room as well - lesson learned).

We invited different component parts of the housing sector to talk with each other and to help inform government about what actions would make a difference so that British Columbians can more easily access housing that is affordable for them. We asked these groups of housing experts questions about what needed to happen to lower rents and build family housing.

We also asked them what they needed from government to achieve our collective goals. We took copious notes as each small group debated among themselves, the various component parts of the sector on how to move forward with a comprehensive plan to address a challenging housing problem.

The result of this collaborative exercise was Homes for BC - a 30-point action plan for Housing Affordability for British Columbia. The people most familiar with the problem helped government to put together the plan that became the blueprint for moving forward. 

Over the next six to seven years, this plan continued to guide housing and finance ministers as we worked to tackle the problem. We changed taxing frameworks to help stabilize the market, we took action to close loopholes and to reduce tax fraud, we increased security for renters, we supported partners to build and preserve much needed affordable housing, and we embarked on the largest investment to build the homes that people need.

At times the work was daunting, but having a framework designed in collaboration with those who are part of the sector permitted us to work together to begin to address the problem. We were making good progress but like any plan, it needs a refresh. We started the design of the plan in the fall of 2017 — it’s been almost nine years and things have changed.

The housing landscape has changed and so have the partners. Immigration and international student numbers have dropped. We built thousands of units of housing over the past nine years addressing some parts of the housing spectrum better than others. Local government leaders have changed, relationships with other partners have shifted and so has the leadership of the federal government. And of course, the provincial government’s financial outlook is not the same as it was nine years ago.

Instead of making haphazard, poorly thought-out announcements, perhaps it’s time for Eby and his housing minister to develop Better Homes for BC 2.0, a plan that is grounded in the current reality, a plan that focusses on respectful partnership and commitment, a plan that shows British Columbians that this government has a vision for helping them afford a place they can call home.

Selina Robinson MA was a family therapist for over 25 years before entering politics in 2008, first as a city counsellor, then as an MLA. She held several cabinet portfolios in the BC government, including municipal affairs & housing, post-secondary education, and finance. Amid rising antisemitism following the October 7 terrorist attacks, Robinson, a Jew, found herself targeted by anti-Israel activists and was fired from cabinet by Premier Eby. She wrote about her experience as a progressive Jew in government in her memoir Truth Be Told.