housing

BC is currently in the midst of a huge election extravaganza. After the Federal Election this month, BC has faced two important provincial by-elections and will soon see municipal elections in Vancouver. A provincial election is set for next year.

Whew!

In the mean time, housing has been creeping in as an important issue.

The NDP made it a major part of their platform in the provincial by-elections calling it a "huge issue" for voters. Mayoral candidates are facing off against condos to address the lack of rental housing. Special groups are pushing for better tenants rights, similar to those in Ontario.

At the same time, the death of a homeless man who was one week away from assisted housing and homeless tent cities have drawn more attention to homelessness in Vancouver.

The Liberals released their election spending plan on Monday with promises on health care, education, infrastructure, environment and aboriginal affairs.

But what about housing?

Though housing concerns have been major in certain parts of the country, the Grit plan was mum on the word.

But surprisingly this might be the norm. According to Howard Tessler of the Federation of Metro Tenants Associations (of which this author is an employee) none of the parties have released any sort of housing plan to date.

"It's one of the most important issues for all Canadians", he said. "There's nothing."

The Hexayurt project is an attempt to create an extremely efficient, easy-to-construct, versatile and sustainable dwelling that can be affordable for people who live on around $1/day... in addition to the obvious structure, the project deals with heating, water purification, and sewage treatment. This is combined with an "open source," no-intellectual-property, globally collaborative approach development. The results are pretty interesting.

Here's a fascinating interview with the project founder, wherein he explains the difficulties in getting institutions to support something so obviously compelling. Here's his basic ethos:

:My goal is pretty simple: by the time I die, everybody in the world has a place to sleep and a bowl of rice a day. No starvation, no poverty of the kind that forces men and women to live like beasts of the field. We can do it: we are well past the point that Buckminster Fuller said our technology had to pass before it was possible.

Most people envisage making the poor rich: this is a social and economic approach. The rich fight it like hell all over the world.

So instead, I decided to focus on cutting the price of essential goods and services to the point where the poor can afford them. Nobody seems to be against that, and if we all agree, then the work will go so much faster than if I had to waste effort arguing with people who don’t think what I’m doing is a good idea.