It’s Saskatoon Day on CBC Radio’s The Current. Woke up to the dulcet tones of Brad Wall in the first half hour saying something about carbon sequestration, clean coal technology (and all those knowledge jobs to go with it) as well as value-added uranium, getting them aboriginal people to work, rent supplements for the too high rent because of the boom and on and on and on. The humdinger was about the oil and gas industry and him saying something like “wouldn’t you rather hang with us while renewable energy is being developed?” I presume he meant elsewhere. (The Current) Absent of course, was any mention of Station 20 West. Or FNUniv. And you know, reality.
Oh, Brad.
Hmm, sounds like Wall is trying to drown out the naysayers. Although I must admit, I did have a little heart flutter at the “rent supplement” bit. Then I realized that I want landlords to stop gouging period, not gouge me AND the provincial government.
I know – to me the living allowance on social assistance is a outright grant to slumlords, no paper trail, no expectation of value or public service, and no way to audit it. It’s a perfect way to facilitate giving money to your friends and appear to be giving it to someone else. And that it’s ‘giving’ is a big stretch: I would love to put a dollar amount on the suffering from living in slum houses. Those tenants pay and pay and pay.
Perhaps a solution is to establish a non-profit foundation that would buy out crap buildings fix them and then rent based on community needs at an affordable rate. After all when you strip the profits out, rents could be lower than the average fairly easily. A few million in a foundation like that might do more good than ‘rent supplements’ ever could.
That’s an excellent idea. (Except that the property values would shoot right up before the sale of the dwellings, so it would be a one off handout). I wonder if it’s been done elsewhere?
TS: that sounds great. Get someone on it!
The government already has social housing, they just need to build more, there is also the Regina Housing Authority, which is under the Saskatchewan Housing Corporation. http://www.socialservices.gov.sk.ca/housing/
A partial solution to homelessness may be to build smaller homes. Small homes are more easily maintained, are minimalist so they don’t encourage acquisition of Walmart-crap for the sake of spending, and would be more affordable for single people with no ability to buy an average or cheap home.
@Carle Steel
You can get around the value spike by making offers via a lawyer or other agent which won’t disclose the buyer being the government or foundation.
@Mike,
Ah, thanks I suspected there was something like that around. I just didn’t know who ran it.