SAY th

y 4 a is a housing crisis is Eaually “Spat something new. ‘thing seenre COUSH: is that little tthe crisis °° -D@ happening to Here ig Mlemso¥, the crisis is described orace Brown of Toron-

fen

8 te are more than 8,000

it Toronte won in 1966 in the

: a alone, and these climb 1,000- total during the

mo ® roblem, of 1967, there has

When it 4 aa ' Teported that there is ty, even ea Vacancy rate in te 1s argued to be lem, ~“*88erated, there is still a "en, in ent is Most affiuent city of tie for a there are evictions M ideal €rgency shelter under F Conditions, the problem and yelling for atten-

as

fn hone than ren’ Starts are down, i, dickerin eval Projects are stall- ny Who dex and by apprehensive Hh ""eWal, heanely need this ur- , When £n it is a crime to have Politicians and officials ae drag feet over ur- Solely py When builders are the Beneral Y the profit motive, Jacke ‘ a Public has an “I’m all - “tude, then we have a

Ramil

dat, On, Ha

mh e for wa Hunter, who was at ina] pee of control last ay shad t ect to the Spectator

an his city: to say about the jc olumns

hoyaemen Ons pane. ay

st Teport . opposition

t Construction and

t op Oat the fre have been sug- . of the Wen ms crisis is a peers’ opposition. at it me There are some Ciency Come about be- Y and blundering.

4 Case of r ity ohn to be C tio th h nm has become aut ex om and pushed aside page is s and buck passing. d the Sault of. political Th ro POnsibje €vels of govern- Tis reer SH idea t

Ponsibje a

f 5 t is dyin Politiche cwlarly vanber ount. “"S have to take

ee on city Council may not lang * but the absence Nt While no master plan buildin People are living hed o 8S and fire traps ff. Recent council orj a et foot- e ris Plans

m direction a

THE GROWING CONCERN about the

supply to houses aplenty are absent. To paraphrase the well known jingle ‘a little dab will do them’ would be an appropritae theme song for city hall antics.”

Dave Archer, president of the Onta- rio Federation of Labor, also has some things to say on this important ques- tion. In an article, in Information, jour- nal of the United Steelworkers of Ame- rica, he writes:

“The private sector of our economy cannot provide housing for the low-in- come families. They’re not even going to: try as long as-they can sell more expensive homes at a higher profit. . .

“The provisions of low-rental hous- ing must remain a community respon- sibility. Otherwise housing needs for the average man will simply not be mets...

“Municipalities must be responsible for-housing their citizens and they must have the financial and administrative ability to accept this responsibility. This is where the grass roots democra- cy can flourish. This is the level on which citizens can make their presence felt.

Housing Corpo-ation were to reduce its interest ratés on its loans and make them directly to the municipality, if the province were to give the same financial incentives regarding capital costs and operating subsidies to muni- cipalities or their agencies as they do the Ontario Housing Corporation, if the 11 percent federal tax on building materials and the compounded five per- cent provincial sales tax were eliminat- ed on public housing projects, I would be willing to wager that municipalities would accept their responsibilities.” Another suggestion to assist in the financing of housing at the municipal

“Jevel is contained in a letter to the

Hamilton Spectator from Don Stewart, a candidate for alderman in the last election. Stewart says: ; “My contention is, and has been for some time, that our present method of raising municipal taxes is outdated and requires a complete overhaul. Money for education, welfare, police and fire protection should no longer be part of reality taxes. The provincial and fed- eral governments should have the re- sponsibility of raising this money. Where this money comes from, of

Sree presents an interesting prob-

“My proposition is that large indus- tries and commercial -establishments which are realizing larger profits every year should be taxed heavier than they are—a capital gains tax would be one way. These individuals who are- mak- ing their millions out of the various communities are morally responsible to help make life more bearable to the people who work and produce this wealth.

“I feel that until an approach to housing and other social problems sim- ilar. to this one is arrived at, these problems will not be solved.”

New thinking is needed on the prob- lem if we-are to see a way out of the crisis.

An editorial in Canadian Labor, organ of the Canadian Labor Congress, puts it this way:

“Canada is failing in the task of ade- quately housing its people . . . under existing housing policies home owner- ship has become unattainable for most low and middle-income Canadians. If the housing crisis is to be met, Canada must abandon two~ long-cherished ideals; that every Canadian should own a home on an individual lot, and that private enterprise can adequately provide such housing. Rising land costs and mortgage interest rates as well as the mobility of the Canadian popula- tion, have made these ideals obso- lete ....

“The average home owner moves every seven years, and one in four re- cipients of family allowances moves every year.

“Housing policies based on private institutions and individual ownership are no longer realistic. The time has come to treat housing.as a public util- ity, curb land speculation, stress pub- lic and co-operative ownership, and

- build multiple-unit dwellings that will

house Canadians in comfort, health, dignity and privacy at prices they can afford.”

Bruces Magnuson, Ontario leader of the Communist Party and candidate in Toronto-Dovercourt, also adds _ his voice: :

“Why not acknowledge that housing is a public utility? Mix income levels. End land speculation, soaring rents. and interest rates. Take private profits out of public housing. Reduce crip- pling municipal taxes by assuming cost of education at the provincial level, as the Communist Party called for in a statement issued last February. While calling for public funds to be used on a vast scale for public housing, the Com- munist Party puts the blame for de- teriorating housing conditions on the fact that our “Canadian society is or- ganized in a system based on the drive for maximum profit -rather than the fulfillment of human needs’.”

All this bears out the growing con-- cern over the crisis, and it will be out of this debate and discussion that.-ac+ tion by the people concerned will force government at all levels to take those steps that are necessary for fulfilling to aim of a decent home for every Can-

adian.

» Wy U

Battle for r

“If the Canadian Mortgages and

BOOKS

ights theme of novel

The form is a documentary-

and passionate. T°: =1clude those who already - i :.re con- fronted with a ren.oval from the land that they, had completely adopted as their own.

The book evokes anger at the McCarthys, the McCarrans. It evokes pride in those who fight for the democratic rights of all Americans, no matter what their land of birth.

Some of the fictionalization,

sive movements. The McCarran Act of the late

novel. Real people, real cases,

though, does not ring true and,

My 8Usha SP8PIro-Ber- iar wi ar - : : s tj West; Mithograph ing HB RES hee 1940’s was the instrument under real experiences, taken by the i places, obtrudes into the sto- 4 NRG “on insets tation, threats of revoking citi: which a sizeable number of author and set ina semi-fiction- les which without need of gar- ean Citizen © utiliza zenship Americans were deported, de- alized form. - nish are worthy of telling and h "k in eee as a For Ayanioane too, particu- prived of citizenship _ rights, This is perhaps the strength of reading. eee / bhe® m oh nds of larly but not only in the period hounded, arrested, persecuted. and the weakness of the book. A book worth reading for its ¥ Can “Nomena * North of McCarthyism, this was a pat- This is the theme of this book For the stories that are told of subject matter alone even with ‘di NS, bo; tern of state policy with the by an American writer from San_ eight of the victims of the attack the somewhat amateurish fiction j “"N Outside aim of dampening down progres- Francisco. on the foreign-born are poignant overlay. (P.C.)

_—.. : June 9, 1967—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 7