BRITISH COLUMBIA ——

Socreds and Tories axe
needed seniors’ housing

The federal Tory government and
provincial Conservative and Social
Credit governments are conspiring with
developers to scuttle all social housing in
Canada. That is the real meaning of the
agreement reached in Calgary at a con-
ference of federal, provincial and territor-
ial housing ministers early in July.

Involved are non-profit housing pro-
jects such as those developed by churches
and unions to provide affordable hous-
ing to people; public non-profit projects
developed by municipalities (and in B.C.
by the Greater Vancouver Regional Dis-
trict); non-profit co-op housing, and
housing for native Indians.

The agreement provides that social
housing programs will -be transferred
from Ottawa to the provinces. Until now
the federal government has offered sub-
sidies and low interest loans to promote
The reason why this will be a disaster
for B.C. is that our Social Credit
government is fundamentally opposed to
social housing programs. It is opposed to
co-op housing and to providing subsidies
of any kind to low income housing. It
does, however, favor subsidies to devel-
opers, and wants developers to have a
complete monopoly on all housing built.

A confidential B.C. government doc-
ument revealed by the Globe and Mail
shows that the provincial government
plans to replace financial help for low
income housing with rent allowances
only to those in dire need. What land-
lords do, of course, is raise rents by the
amount of the shelter allowance. shelter
allowances are an indirect subsidiy to
landlords and developers.

On top of that, the B.C. government
plans to turn the operation and building
of any and all forms of social housing
over to private developers in spite of the
fact that the private sector admits it can’t
supply affordable housing.

What we can expect from them is well
illustrated by the statement of the head of
the Canadian Home Builders Associa-
tion (a developer group) who declared
recently “We are opposed to the co-op
housing program. . .the shelter allowance
approach is the most effective way to
spend taxpayers’ money.”

The B.C. government has one of the
worst housing expenditure records in
Canada. In 1984 housing expenditures
by other provinces were: Alberta, $300
million, Quebec, $199 million; Ontario
$174 million; Saskatchewan $97 million;
| Manitoba $54 million; Nova Scotia $43
million. B.C. spent only $37 million.

In 1979 Ottawa agreed to give full
responsibility for senior citizen housing
to B.C.

In the five years prior to the 1979
agreement, a total of 8,432 units were
built in B.C., an average of 1,660 units a
year. After the province took it over, it
built, during the next five years, only
2,559 units, or an average of 491 units a
year.

In 1978, before Social Credit took
over senior citizen housing, 1,680 units
were built. In 1979, after Social Credit
took over, only 240 units were built.

Had the annual rate of construction
been maintained after Social Credit took
over we would now have 5,540 more
senior citizen units. And this drop in
senior citizen housing construction
meant a loss of 10,900 person-years of
employment (2,700 in the construction
industry and 8,200 in related employ-
ment in the economy in general.)

The Social Credit government excused
its decreased construction of senior citi-
zen housing by stating that it was replac-
ing it with a SAFER (Shelter Assistance

For Elderly Renters) program. It’s quite
a scam.

Under this program the average
amount received by a low-income senior
citizen in 1984 was only $74 per month,
and there were only 10,200 recipients last
year. As pointed out before, many land-
lords simply raise their rents by the
amount of the shelter allowance received
by their tenants. The tenants gain little;
the landlords get all the rest. The result is
that many seniors pay 50 per cent or
more of their income for rent.

The new Ottawa-B.C. deal on social

housing will, if implemented, (it is sche- *

duled to go into effect in September)
effectively destroy the ability of munici-
palities and non-profit groups to deliver
mixed income family housing. The peo-
ple of Vancouver have everything to lose
and nothing to gain if this deal goes
through.

. We should all register our vigorous
opposition with both Victoria and
Ottawa before the next ministers’ hous-
ing conference in early September.

Declare apartheid ©
‘off limits’ say |
Vancouver.aldermen

Vancouver’s civic government will refuse
to deal with financial institutions that con-
tinue to do business with the government of
South Africa, if a motion passed in city
council’s finance and administration com-
mittee Aug. 15 is adopted by full council
next Tuesday.

The policy move, which follows those of
other cities around the world, means the city
of Vancouver “will not invest or deposit its
own public funds or trust funds under its
care in financial institutions which do busi-
ness with the Republic of South Africa, or
its agencies, and will divest itself of any such
investments as may be in its trust funds or
may be received for its trust funds.”

The motion, unanimously adopted by
the five-member committee, was followed
by another urging the provincial govern-
ment to join three other Canadian provin-

ces in removing South African wines and.

liquors from B.C. liquor stores, and to raise
the issue at the upcoming first ministers’
conference this fall.

The policy, commonly known as “dis-

investment” would be a “policy first” -

among Canadian cities if adopted by Van-
couver council, said committee member
Ald. Bruce Yorke. - =
The issue first came up before council
May 7, when the mayor and aldermen con-

‘sidered a partial list of financial institutions

and corporations dealing with South
Africa, compiled by the United Nations,
and a request for a policy of disinvestment
from Vancouver’s sister city, Edinburgh.

The request from the Scottish city
informed “those cities with which we have a
twinning arrangements of our recent deci-
sion to cease to invest city funds in compan-
ies and organizations whose names appear
on the United Nations’ “Black List’ as hav-
ing financial interests in South Africa.

“We urge our sister cities to consider join-
ing Edinburgh by adopting a similar policy
as a positive step to helping the black major-
ity in South Africa in this struggle against
the apartheid policies of the white South
African government,” it stated.

The proposed policy, which met with the
support of the Southern African Action
Coalition and other local anti-apartheid
groups, was referred to council’s finance
committee for further consideration pend-
ing a report, on Canadian institutions doing
business with South Africa, from city staff.

Seattle, Berkeley and New York city also
have disinvestment policies on the books,
city finance director Peter Leckie said in a
report to the committee.

Leckie’s investigation also found «that
most Canadian churches — Anglican,
Lutheran, Baptist, Catholic, Unitarian and
United — either have “no trade’’ policies
regarding South Africa, or act as they have
such policies. :

The churches’ position coincided with a
statement last month from the South Afri-
can Council of Churches, in which the
umbrella group declared its support for the
policy of disinvestment.

Noting that “foreign investment and
loans have been used to support prevailing ~
patterns of power and privilege in South
Africa,” the council in a telex said many
church leaders “‘are in favor of (selective)
disinvestment and economic sanctions
because they believe that the situation is
now So serious that economic action must
be taken...to force the South African
government to take seriously the need for
fundamental change in South Africa.”

“There are very strict laws in South
Africa against calling for disinvestment,”
Yorke noted later. “The statement of the
church people is a key initiative, and a very
courageous statement indeed.”

Similar responses were received from
labor centrals — the B.C. Federation of
Labor, the Canadian Labor Congress and
the B.C. and Yukon Building Trades
Council — Leckie reported, while noting
that no formal reply was received from the
Canadian Federation of Labor, (the organ-
ization set up by U.S. construction union
executives following the breakaway from
the CLC.)

From the banks, in which the city has
millions of dollars in deposits and other
financial arranagements, the message was
mixed, said the finance director.

“The responses from the Canadian
Imperial Bank of Commerce, the Royal
Bank and the Toronto Dominion Bank
were all quite clear, and indicated that while
some old loans might still be outstanding,
no new loans had been made for a consider-
able length of time,” Leckie stated.

The Bank-of Montreal and Scotiabank
were “‘less direct,” pleading confidentiality,
but indicated they were not makingloansto
the South African government or its agen-
cies, he reported.

Both the Bank of British Columbia, and
Vancouver City Savings Credit Union,

stated they had no loans or investments —

with the South African government, or with
South African domestic industries or
branches of transnational corporations.

DERA, city
Staff push

limits on
eviction,

rent hikes

Thousands of residents in Vancouver’s
downtown eastside could lose their homes
from hotel owners looking to make a
quick buck from the tourist trade gener-
ated by Expo 86, the Downtown Eastside
Residents Association has warned.

DERA, with the support of city hall’s
Social Planning Department, is urging city

- council to adopt a rent and eviction freeze

on the area’s hotels and rooming houses to
ensure long-term residents aren’t dis-
placed by some of the estimated 1.2 mil-
lion visitors to the world exposition.

And, warns DERA worker John
Shayler, rent increases of 17 per cent in the
last two years are forcing the area’s low-
income residents to move: “Even without
Expo, people are being forced into a prec-
arious position.”

The request for limits on evictions anda
rent freeze will come up at council’s Tues-
day meeting next week. Attempts to get
council to adopt the measures Aug. 14
failed when three key recommendations
from city staff failed in a 5-5 tie vote.

Council’s right-wingers, including alder-
men George Puil and Marguerite Ford,

belittled the warnings of evictions and
accepted the word of the B.C. Hotels
Association — which represents a minor-
ity of downtown eastside hotel owners —
that hotel owners would voluntarily
practise restraint in renting to Expo’s tour-
ist trade.

Yet DERA, with material to be used in
an upcoming slide show, has already
amassed evidence pointing out changes
that have seen the steady conversion of the
neighborhood as an area for low-income
residents. It involves the conversion of
existing rooming houses to bed-and-
breakfast accommodation, the upgrading
of, and subsequent rent increase for, hotel
rooms, or the destruction of hotels and
their replacement by expensive accommo-
dation, said Shayler.

In the case of the Patricia and Hildon
hotels, rooms that were formerly afforda-
ble to GAIN recipients on rent allowances
frozen two years ago at $200 per month,
now cost between $19 and $20 a night.
“Someone on GAIN could stay there
about 10 days,” Shayler noted.

Other hotels, such as the Palms, Arco,

Beacon and Western Sports, have evicted
all tenants and are undergoing renova-
tions, according to DERA.

The levelling of the Georgia Hotel saw
70 units detroyed to create “13 units anda
parking lot,” Shayler said.

But a major fear is that many hotel
owners will evict tenants and convert their
building in the few months prior to the
opening of Expo next April, members of
the Social Planning Department and

- DERA workers agreed.

Supporting motions asking the provin-
cial government to enact amendments to
Vancouver's Charter allowing the city to
impose a temporary rent freeze and “‘con-
ditional eviction protection” for long-term
tenants, instructing city staff to set up
enforcement procedures, and to forward
the motions to Expo’s directors were the
Committee of Progressive Electors alder-
men — Harry Rankin, Bruce Eriksen,
Bruce Yorke and Libby Davies — and
Ald, Bill Yee,

The motions will come before council
Aug. 27, when Mayor Mike Harcourt will
return from vacation.

2 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, AUGUST 21, 1985