Get two people in a room and there will be two opinions around affordable housing. Squamish and the Lower Mainland are going through a profound shift in land values and utility; rentals and ownership have been transformed, and Airbnb has become a factor.
I attended a talk about affordable housing ideas for Vancouver at the downtown Simon Fraser University campus by Michael Geller. Geller is an architect, planner, real estate consultant and property developer with four decades of experience in the public, private and institutional sectors. He was the planner for the Furry Creek development.
A question that came up was: Do we need to support the supply end with developer incentives or the demand end with rental subsidies? My suggestion at the end of the presentation was an idea incubated over time through a public banking forum with Ellen Brown and the genius of Margrit Kennedy: Give each Canadian citizens a token as an interest-free mortgage that can only be applied to primary residencies as a first mortgage with no amortization period. The amount could vary from region to region, much as the current S.A.F.E.R. rent subsidy program works.
Every Canadian is a shareholder in the Bank of Canada, and until Pierre Elliot Trudeau surrendered our monetary sovereignty to join the program of the G6, Canada had used the bank for government funding on numerous projects like our Canada Pension Fund, medicare, infrastructure and welfare without going into unmanageable debt. Now his son, Justin Trudeau, has pledged to consider using the Bank of Canada again to boost jobs with a massive infrastructure program.
Providing government funds to get young people started without debt is not a novel policy. Gaddafi had a similar program in Libya that provided interest-free support for schooling, families starting new households and even small business enterprises.
Many people in Squamish are losing the ability to stay at good jobs and maintain old relationships when they are forced to vacate rental properties being sold or are no longer able to afford the high prices. Without having to qualify for or bear the pressure of high mortgage payments, people could purchase homes and build equity towards a retirement fund that is cashed out later in life.
This is a working idea that merits consideration. The only people this would upset are the commercial banks that have been given a monopoly on money creation. Tell them: Live with it.
Ralph Fulber
Brittania Beach
