SCUTTLES PUBLIC HOUSING

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1969

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GENERAL STRIKE IN ITALY. Tens of thousands of students have joined trade unions in Italy this week for a
general strike in support of their demands. Leaders of the country’s three major unions announced after talks
‘with the government that the strike would go on this Wednesday. The action of workers and students all
over Italy was described by Communist Party leader Luigo Longo as being ‘without precedent.”

School crisis ‘explosive’

_ Making
_ System of B.C. More than 30 of

this

By NIGEL MORGAN

An explosive situation is in the
in the public school

the Province’s 80 School
Districts have found it
impossible to operate without
exceeding the 110% limit placed
On operational costs by Bill 86 —
adopted at last spring’s legis-
lative session, to regulate School
Board spending.

In short, more than a third of
B.C.’s public school system is
confronted with three alter-
Natives: Either (a) mobilize
Public opinion to compel the
‘B0vernment to contribute
bstantially more in Provin-
Cial grants; (b) Cutback the

ality of education, seriously
curtailing services and reducing

andards; Or (c) try to
intain existing educational
fograms until the money runs

out and schools have to be shut
down.

Effects of the maturing crisis
are expected to be felt before
mid-April when all school
budgets have to be finalized.

In previous years the Pro-
vincial Department of Educa-
tion simply deducted what it
termed ‘‘nonshareable
expenses’? from the operating
total, and estimated its grant on
the balance. School Boards were
free to include these ‘‘nonshare-
able’ items in the total school
budget.

Under the new formula
(provided in Bill 86) the Pro-
vincial government has locked
operating costs to a provincial
average; And the difference
between this provincial aver-
age (which actually constitutes

a ceiling) and the operating
expenses of the school budget, is _

classed by Victoria as ‘‘excess’”’
and nonshareable.’’ It cannot
be included in the budget as in
previous years.

School Boards are thus faced
with cutbacks (with 80% of
school operating costs involving
salaries and wages set by
binding arbitration, and no
voice in determining the budget
of regional colleges - a large
proportion of the costs of which
must be included in District
school budgets and charged to
local ratepayers.

If the District budget exceeds
the previous year’s budget by
more than 10%, then the Board
must go to municipal or city
council and ask approval. If
turned down, as is the case in a
number of larger urban centres
(including amongst others
Vancouver and North Van-

See SCHOOL CRISIS, pg. 12

VOL. 30, NO. 6

HELLYER REPORT HIT

Helps profiteers,
not those in need

Vancouver Alderman Harry Rankin charged this
week that the key recommendation of the federal task
force on housing, headed by Transport Minister Paul
Hellyer, is to scuttle low rental public housing.

“It comes as no surprise,’’ he
said. ‘‘Throughout the hearings
held across the country last
year, Hellyer and other
members of his task force
concentrated all their criticism
on public housing.’’

Lashing out at the report,
Rankin said ‘‘it should be
condemned for what it is — a
calculated and callous effort to
end low rental housing, a report
designed to enable real estate
interests to keep on boosting
rents and housing costs, and an
utter failure to provide anything
for the people who need housing
the most — the lower income
groups.”’

“There are really only two
measures that will solve the
desperate housing shortage,” he
said. ‘One is public low rental
housing to provide decent
accommodation at rents they
can afford to all lower income
families.

“The other is low interest
loans, of two or three per cent, to
people who want to build their
own homes, with land being
leased by them from
municipalities at nominal rates,
or to remodel an older home.

“These are the only solutions
for the lower income groups and
by that I mean any family
earning $8,000 a year or less.
That includes three quarters of
our population, if not more.

HALF THE PRICE

‘Public low rental housing can
provide good apartments for
about half the price of privately
owned apartments. Hundreds of
families in Vancouver have been
taken out of rundown, squalid,
slum rooms, infested with
cockroaches and rats (where
rents were high too) and put into
decent public housing projects.

“Of course large public
housing projects have had their

shortcomings too. They
concentrated poor people in one
area. Recreational and other
facilities were inadequate or
entirely lacking. But with all
their shortcomings, public
housing units are still
immeasurably better than
anything these families had
before. That’s why the waiting
list runs into thousands.

“For Hellyer to call public
housing projects ‘ghettos of
poor’ is hypocrisy. He offers
nothing to take their place. He
would condemn the poor to live
out their existence in slums unfit
for human habitation.

NO SOLUTION

‘To end public housing
because it isn’t good enough is
like abolishing old age pensions
because they aren’t high enough
to enable senior citizens to live
in comfort and security in their
old age!

“Why is Hellyer so down on
public housing? Obviously, he
has been listening to real estate
people. As everyone knows,
powerful real estate interests
have been unrelenting in their
campaign against public
housing. They regard anything
that would lower rents as a
threat to the high prices they
charge in their apartments. That
a minister of the federal
government should associate
himself with these interests
against the people of Canada is
nothing short of scandalous.

‘“‘Hellyer’s solution, if you can
call it that, to the housing crisis
is to provide loans of up to
$30,000 for a period of 40 years,
eventually without any down
payment!
‘Do you know what this would
cost the homeowner? At present
interest rates of 9% per cent, it
would mean a monthly payment
of $236. Taxes would amount to

See HOUSING, pg. 2