Metro Vancouver's Housing Crisis: A Huge Opportunity?
Skyrocketing real estate prices are forcing many Vancouverites to consider leaving or abandoning dreams of one day owning here. Could there be another option? Photo by David P. Ball
One in three Vancouverites can't afford what they pay for housing, if you believe the latest National Housing Survey. Throughout the greater Vancouver metro region, citizens call unaffordable housing a crisis in their communities. Yet housing remains low on both federal and provincial priority lists, and municipalities can only do so much.
A growing number of British Columbians have stopped waiting for governments to help them find adequate and affordable shelter -- let alone rescue their dreams of homeownership.
Fed up with the usual complaint that this city is too expensive for many to live in, a growing movement is seeking, inventing or adapting innovative solutions that others might consider just a little mad: everything from buying and living communally, to occupying smaller private units with more shared amenities, to embracing more flexible suite layouts that can enlarge or contract as people move through life in one place. In many cases that means re-thinking the idea of one nuclear family per home, one home per lot, and a single-family mortgage.
It's a trend that's already taken root in other major cities across Canada, where in the absence of a revival in federal and provincial spending on housing as a social objective, creative citizens are testing out new ways of getting themselves and others like them into homes they own, while also improving the quality of life of their communities.
Follow reporter David P. Ball as he explores the many ways that necessity is fostering inventive new cures for the intractable Vancouver housing "crisis" in this ongoing series.
This series was produced by Tyee Solutions Society. It was made possible through the support of Vancity Credit Union. Support for this project does not necessarily imply Vancity's endorsement of the findings or content of this report. TSS funders neither influence nor endorse the particular content of TSS reporting. Other publications wishing to publish this story or other TSS produced articles, please see this website for contacts and information.
In This Series
The Silver Lining to Vancouver's Homeownership Crisis
Priced out, working families and nonprofits take matters into their own hands. Start of a new solutions series.
Novel Map Targets Hidden Opportunities for Affordable Housing
Launched today, new Rental Housing Index hopes to transform knowledge into power.
If You Can Afford to Rent, You Could Be a Homeowner
Architect Avi Friedman scoured the globe for new housing forms we could apply in Canada.
Slideshow: Global Experiments in Affordable Homeownership
An architect's trek around the world serves as a brainstorm for Vancouver solutions.
With Friends Fleeing Unaffordability, Vancouver Architect Looks East for Solutions
'Options from Homes' made homeownership possible for thousands in Ontario. Why hasn't it caught on here?
Calgary's $2,000 Homeownership Hack
Free-market paradise over the Rockies is tackling housing crisis with a bold city-owned experiment.
When God Is Your Developer
Religious communities are putting their faith, and their property, behind affordable housing.
Retirement Saving Could Help Build a Better Community
A canny Nova Scotian idea aims to pump millions into affordable rentals in Victoria.
Low-Rent Mansion Living? In Vancouver? Really?
Yes, really. Groups of frustrated renters are snapping up urban acreages, and spend less on housing than the rest of us.
Real Cities Give Their People Places to Pee
Public washrooms should be plentiful and accessible, says one scholar. And cities that do flush, flourish.
