Ot

a

TENANTS DEMAND

RENT CONTROL NOW

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1968

SOVIET UNION BLAZES NEW TRAIL TO THE MOON. The recovery of Zond 5 after flying round the moon and
back has been hailed as a magnificent achievement for Soviet scientists which puts the USSR far ahead of the
U.S. Apollo project. The extent of the Soviet Union's space program is shown by this photo of an assembly

factory for space ships.

Big real estate interests
block action on housing

Following is the third article in a
series by a PT reader in Victoria who
has made a study of the real estate
business in B.C. Last week he showed
how real estate interests get their
pound of flesh from homebuyers.

~ Looking back over the years it
is not difficult to recall the
profusion of real estate brokers,
agents and salesmen who had
attached themselves to the
burgeoning housing construction
projects. Neither is it difficult to
recall that this profusion was
also separated and divided —

each struggling fora place inthe -

sun — each struggling to gain for
himself a ‘“‘piece’’ of the wage
packet from those who were
desperately in need of housing
accommodation. It mattered not
that they were forcing up the
prices, by their demand for
unearned commissions, over and
above what builders required.
However, the long established
and well entranched moguls of
the real estate business were
determined that there should be
no competition — that control of
the sales of properties and the
rates of commission should be
centralized in their hands.

By persistent effort and
influential lobbying of
governments they have been
successful in achieving powerful
and highly centralized provincial
real estate bodies that have
established a virtual
stranglehold upon all facets of
the sale, exchange and transfer
of our lands and the buildings we
have erected.

The operation of such a highly
centralized real estate apparatus
has had its greatest impact on
the social aspect of our family
life. |

Because housing is so vital to
the needs and well being of the
great mass of our population,
particularly the productive labor
force, it is an extremely
important social requirement.
Not being recognized as such by
private enterprise it has been
used by them as a very lucrative
field for amassing huge profits

*— builders, developers, financial

and investment groups have all
taken a healthy slice from the
housing industry. But by far the
most handsome returns are
those enjoyed by real estate
operators. They are the force

‘which has had the greatest

impact and developed the most
See REALTY GROUPS, Pg 12

U THANT, UN secretary general,
called again this week for an end
to U.S. bombing of North
Vietnam. He said Monday that if
such a resolution was presented
to the General Assembly,
convening this week, it would be
approved by a majority of the 124
members.

VOL. 29, NO. 38

10c

Giant rally spurs
tenant organization

The fight to protect the interests of tenants, who now
make up 53 percent of Vancouver’s population, and to
demand that the city set up rent controls,reached a new
high point this week when about five hundred tenants
attended a giant rally Monday night called by the
Vancouver Tenants Organization Committee at King

George School in the West End.

Following their giant rally,
spokesmen for the tenants
presented a brief Wednesday
night to the city council’s Rent
Regulations Committee
demanding action to protect
tenants and urging city council
to impose rent control
regulations.

The 500 tenants at Monday’s
meeting enthusiastically
applauded plans to set up
tenants’ ‘‘unions’’ in every
apartment block in the city.
Many took forms prepared by
the organizing committee for
calling block meetings to set up
tenant organization. Bruce
Yorke, acting secretary of the
committee, announced his
committee would assist in
calling tenants’ meetings.
Address of the Vancouver
Tenants’ Organization
Committee is P.O. Box 6322,
Station G, Vancouver.

Yorke said that tenants will
face further rent increases this
fall, which landlords will seek to
justify by pointing to higher city
taxes on their buildings. He said
that so far rent increases
investigated by his committee
were several times over the tax
increase.

Yorke called on the city
council to adopt rent controls.
“It has the legal power to enact
rent control legislation,’ he

said.
&

Ald. Harry Rankin, who led off
the fight in city hall for rent
controls and revision of the
outdated Landlord Tenant Act,
told the meeting tenants are
second class citizens because of
rigid rules in some blocks. He
said 24% of the 25 standard
regulations on the back of
apartment lease forms are for
the landlord’s benefit.

Rankin said that utlimately
every landlord should be
required to negotiate rents with
his tenants, just as an employer
negotiates wages with his
employees. He said at present a
landlord can cut off a tenant’s
light, heat or water and the city
is powerless to act against such
landlords unless a health hazard
can be proven.

A pledge of support to the

tenants came from Frank
Kennedy, acting secretary of the
Vancouver Labor Council, who
promised labor’s full support to
the new tenant’s organization.
The labor council has already
decided to submit a brief to the
city hall’s rent control
committee in support of tenant
demands.

Monday afternoon Ald. Rankin
tangled with representatives of
landlord groups who presented
briefs to the first hearings of the
city council’s committee
opposing rent controls. He
countered their argument that
rents should not be frozen unless
wages and prices are frozen too
by pointing out that there is a
difference between rental
controls and a rental freeze.

He defined rent controls as ;

provisions of a city bylaw that
would tie rent increases to
increases in taxation and other
costs in operating apartments.
A freeze, he said, would ban all
forms of increase.

Rankin also forced from
landlord representatives
admissions that the present
Landlord and Tenants Act
needed updating. In particular,
they were forced to agree that
there should be bylaw provisions
making it illegal for a landlord to
withold heat, to fail to maintain
a 70-degree temperature in an
apartment, or to turn off lights
and water to solve a dispute
between landlord and tenant.

Landlord representatives told
the city council committee that
the best form of rent control
would be to allow the law of
supply and demand to set the
rents. Answering this claim,
Rankin told the public meeting
Monday night, ‘‘That’s okay if
there was no shortage of suites
in the city. But there's a
tremendous shortage and it’s
especially hard on old age
pensioners and couples with
young children.”

It should also be pointed out
that despite the law of supply
and demand landlords are able to
fix and hold to certain rent levels
by agreement among  them-
selves.

See TENANTS, pg. 12

ire a nmin emer mo

part

se eoionvemai item

tie i res anne Seine ei enim ee aa al

ictiinisaatsiiaeinaaaeadaeaaeaiSaeiciat