Affordable housing is a hotly debated issue here in Vancouver, and rightfully so, being as we’re often labelled as one of the most unaffordable cities in the world. Affordability is a huge issue for a broad spectrum of residents here in the lower mainland, not just for those living below the poverty line. Working in this industry, and also being in the 25-35yr age group here in Vancouver (that is often left feeling hopeless when the talk of home ownership comes up), it’s clear to see how this growing problem is affecting so many middle class residents. Many young well-educated, career-oriented individuals from teachers, nurses to corporate employees, with household incomes of $50,000-$80,000, are effectively priced out of the housing market. In my opinion this is one of the biggest issues that needs to be tackled here in our city. When many people hear the term ‘affordable housing’ they automatically think of housing for the homeless (which is of course a huge issue for us here), but affordable housing needs to also address this large segment that sits in the middle of the housing spectrum, and I’m happy to see is that we’re starting to give more attention to.

Here is a recent talk by Dr. Avi Friedman Thinking Outside the Box about Affordable Housing, which was hosted by SFU Centre for Dialogue.

A few points he made that stuck with me were:

• Housing is a defining instrument that can ensure all of us live on equal footing. We cannot afford to build a two-tiered society, because once we do that Canada is not longer Canada. It is El Salvador or Guatemala. We need to give everyone an opportunity to make it
• The housing construction sector is a huge generator of jobs and economic activity. It helps on both the supply side and demand side (by providing jobs & incomes for residents)
• The way we’ve been building housing is very archaic. Compared to the amount of innovation we’ve seen in the car industry and computers for example, there has been very little (to no) innovation in how we build homes.
• Our demand issue: We often criticize the influx of overseas investors and immigrants (particularly from Asia) for driving up prices above affordable levels. The reality is that we live in one of the most desirable cities in the world, and even if demand from Asia was slowed down that would only make more room for others (such as retirees from Alberta and other parts of Canada and the world) who also have Vancouver as their target.
• Life is about tradeoffs. We cannot have it all. (This reminded me of one of my favourite sayings ‘you can have anything, but you can’t have everything’). Affordable housing is achievable – what are we willing to trade-off to get it? What’s more important to us right now than this?
• Some of the biggest constraints we face here in Vancouver that are hampering supply of affordable housing are our extremely high cost of land, and bureaucracy at the municipal level. A big complaint I hear from my colleagues in the development industry is the outrageous costs of Community Amenity Contributions (CACs) for re-zoning which makes development in some prime locations (such as along the Cambie Corridor) almost infeasible..the result is that we're not making the highest and best use of our land. 
• We have a problem here, and stakeholders need to stop pointing fingers and come work together to solve it. As Peter Ladner says in the end ‘A lot more is possible than what we’re doing now, we need break through and open up our imaginations.’ We need to think outside the box.