Ideas - Has the housing crisis shaken your trust in democracy?

Episode Date: April 21, 2025

Like many cities in Canada, Nanaimo has a housing crisis. As rent prices have surged, so has homelessness. According to the city's last official count, there are 515 unhoused people in Nanaimo at any given time. By population, that is a higher homelessness rate than the city of Vancouver. The second episode in our series, IDEAS for a Better Canada, explores how homelessness affects the health of our democracy and why long-term solutions are so hard to achieve.

When they predict we'll fall, we rise to the challenge. When they say we're not a country, we stand on guard. This land taught us to be brave and caring, to protect our values, to leave no one behind. Canada is on the line, and it's time to vote as though our country depends on it, because like never before, it does. I'm Jonathan Pedneau, co-leader of the Green Party of Canada.

This election, each vote makes a difference. Authorized by the Registeredleader of the Green Party of Canada. This election, each vote makes a difference. Authorized by the registered agent of the Green Party of Canada. This is a CBC Podcast. Welcome to Ideas. I'm Nala Ayad and welcome to our series Ideas for a Better Canada, coming to you from Vancouver Island on the shores of the Salish Sea in beautiful Nanaimo, British Columbia.

APPLAUSE How do we as a country revitalize our democracy? How should we navigate the tension over competing versions of who we are and who we want to be? In our series Ideas for a Better Canada, we are traveling to libraries in different parts of the country in search of local ideas that can inspire national change. Nanaimo is a growing city. In 2020, the population crossed a threshold. More than 100,000 people now call the city of Nanaimo home,

and it's one of the fastest growing regions in Canada. About 3,200 people move to the region each year, a majority from elsewhere in BC, and they're not despite stereotypes about the island coming to retire. The largest age group in fact projected to move to Nanaimo in the next few years are young and working-aged people from 25 to 44. From its past as a coal mining and industry town, Nanaimo is now a destination for young

professionals and workers, a place to start a family, a career, a business surrounded by stunning natural beauty. But of course, growth brings challenges, some of them severe. Like many cities in Canada, Nanaimo has a housing crisis. Nanaimo's state of the economy report from last year found that the average cost of a single family house was $1.2 million. The average asking rent for a one-bedroom apartment on the market today, according to rentals.ca, is over $1,800 a month.

As prices have surged, so has homelessness. According to the last count, Nanaimo is home to 515 unhoused people at any given time. By population, that is a higher homelessness rate than the city of Vancouver. All of these challenges bring tension and division. Building new housing means changing neighbourhoods. New shelter and supportive housing spaces bring concerns about peace and public safety. And perhaps the thorniest issue of all of them. If you can't afford a home, you'd love to see prices tumble,

and if you already own one, the last thing you want is a weak market. Of course, Nanaimo is not alone in these challenges, but it is at the forefront. And we want to know, how does the housing crisis affect the health of our democracy? How can people feel they belong in a community when they can barely make rent?

Who is included in decisions about a neighbourhood's future and who is left out? And what obligations does a society have to make space for everyone? Our first guest is a colleague of mine and of course a familiar voice to many of you who listen to the radio Gregor Craigie from CBC radio on Vancouver Island of course every morning you are telling the people of this island of what's going on and the weather and All the news and chance of showers with clearing skies in the afternoon and a high of eight degrees inland Six degrees on the East Coast and a bit of wind moving in in the afternoon on the North of eight degrees inland, six degrees on the East Coast, and a bit of wind moving in in the afternoon on the North Island.

Thank you very much. Thank you. It's got a fabulous voice. The other thing, some of you may not know this, but the other thing that Gregor has done is he's the author of a new book called Our Crumbling Foundation, How We Solve Canada's Housing Crisis. From the perch that you have, the chair, the host chair in the morning, what is your sense of the scale of the problem, the housing crisis here on this island? It's huge and it has become not just a Vancouver, downtown east side problem. It's spread to cities and towns big and small across

this province and across this country. The first time I became aware of what I think is the housing crisis was actually in 1996, when I moved from Alberta, where I grew up, to Vancouver. And I started working a year later as a reporter, and I walked through the downtown Eastside, which is very familiar to so many, and I was staggered by the social issues and the homelessness and all the rest of it but it has been growing ever since. Year after year after year it's not just Victoria, it's not just Nanaimo, it's Duncan, it's Kamloops, it's Abbotsford, it's across this country. In my book I talk about very small

towns in Nova Scotia that are now having this crisis. So from my personal it is fundamentally affecting the health and the stability of our communities at every level. Because even if like me, you're housed, you own your own home, the people around you are facing more and more friction. And I originally wanted to call this book, A Crack in the Foundation, but it took me about a week of research to realize, no, it is Trumbling the foundation is riddled with cracks The foundation is is is housing what it is to us It is the bedrock of our lives and the more and more of us who are not sure how long we're gonna have a safe

place to live will be Stuck in a car in a Walmart parking lot, the more our whole communities, neighborhoods, cities, provinces and country are destabilized. So it's issue number one, and I'm curious in your, again, from your observations, what it does to people's sense of belonging in this community, but also others. I've brought my book, not as a prop for the radio now,

but just to read one quote, and this is one quote that keeps coming back to me every time I talk about housing. I interviewed so many people for this book, but the one that sticks with me is Kel Silam, who is the chair of the Squamish Nation Council over on the mainland, and the Squamish Nation is building a massive housing project on the site of their ancestral village, Sinoc, right across the Broad Street Bridge from downtown Vancouver. And it's been controversial, but they are moving ahead.

Just like, just like Snunemukh here in Nanaimo are moving ahead economically, so are Squamish. And they're building these thousands of homes. And Kelsilam said to me, both rents and housing prices have become unfair. No matter what income level your household has, very few households in urban areas now are getting a fair deal,"

he said. And that has affected a whole generation in terms of the future of who we are as a country, the ability to have a life, have a home, grow your wealth, especially if you come from an impoverished background. We're creating a whole economic class where one side has property and the other is just locked out. And that was Kel Silam, the chair of the Squamish Nation Council and I think he hit the nail on the head. Yeah, so different classes, creating different classes of people based on home ownership. It's kind of, it's from

the deep past isn't it? Absolutely and he pointed out that young people especially, but of course it goes across the demographics, but young people in particular are being robbed of opportunity to build, especially for people with impoverished backgrounds, a better life for themselves. So when you wrote this book, obviously, you were looking for solutions. And you went far and wide looking for solutions.

I'm wondering to what extent you found that really, ultimately, the final answer was just more supply? I do think the final answer is more supply, however I don't think it's just a simple problem of supply and demand because there are so many questions about what constricts supply and what increases demand, but I found no silver bullet Nala. I think dozens of changes are needed across this country. If I found anywhere around the world that I thought came closest to us, I actually think it was Paris, where they have enacted a raft of changes, financing,

borrowing, quotas for housing construction, infill, making free public land, improving transportation, on and on. They have taken a city with an affordability problem and a lack of housing and turned it around significantly. But even then, there's still so many differences. So the short answer is there is no simple one answer and we need to make dozens of changes now or it will not get better. That's great. Thank you. We're going to come back and chat with you a little bit more a bit later,

but thank you very much for that as a start. Thanks, Stella. OK. And so I want to actually bring in someone else into the conversation. Michael McKenzie is the Jaroslawski Chair in Trust and Political Leadership at Vancouver Island University.

He studies trust in the democratic process, ethics and governance and leadership, and political decision making both long and short term. Welcome, Michael. Thanks very much for having me. Thank you for being here. Here's a deceivingly simple question, but an important one. What is the relationship between access

to housing and democracy? Well, I think it is a complex question. If we think about democracy broadly as what we do when we're trying to live together with other people, in particular other people who disagree, and we always will disagree. We always disagree when we live with people, whether it's in a small group, when we're living with family or roommates, or whether we're living in a province of 4 million people or a country of four million people or a country of 40 million people, we will disagree

and we have to figure out how to navigate that together. And when we do that in democratic ways, we treat other people like people. When we do it in undemocratic ways, we treat people like objects to be moved or manipulated. And so if we think about democracy in that broad sense, how do we live in a community with other people and navigate through our disagreements? And housing is fundamental, as Gregor said.

It's just absolutely fundamental to everything we do. It's difficult to live well without being housed. And if you're not living well, if you don't have access to the basic necessities of life, you also don't have the conditions you need to actively participate in the communities that we live in together. And so we just can't have a democracy if people are not living lives that rise above the basic bare necessities of life. I'm really interested in not just the mechanics, of course, the necessity of having the basics of a good life, living well, but also your representation, your voice as someone who's either struggling with homelessness or someone who's either struggling with homelessness

or someone who's having trouble affording housing. Who speaks for you in society when you're busy working and making a living? Well, in a democracy, we want people to have opportunities to speak for themselves or to speak through their representatives who understand their problems and their issues.

But when there's a large population of people who are not actively involved in our community life, they often don't get well represented. And they're not going to be well represented because people don't understand their issues, their problems, their interests, their perspectives, their material needs. And if they're not in a position to participate themselves or to elect representatives who do understand those perspectives and needs, those perspectives and needs just aren't going to be considered properly. They're not going to be first priority needs.

I think we see that. What's really interesting about you, Michael, I thought, is the fact that you, among your many areas of study, one is intergenerational relations. You know, we all know, of course, that older and retired Canadians, not all, but often, they are far more likely to be homeowners than younger people. And I'm wondering if you could speak to how that generational divide affects the health of democracy.

Yeah, well, as we know, housing and property ownership is a very important component of intergenerational wealth transfer. So when you own a home, you have a property that tends to retain its value. And as we've seen in many communities, the value of properties are actually going up and that's a bit of security and it also means you can pass on wealth to your children. If you don't buy into the market, if you don't have that opportunity, if you didn't come

from a family who had that opportunity in the past, you're very far behind economically. And so this is a real divide. And we may be getting into a, if we're not already there, into a situation where our society is like two different societies, as Gregor was saying. There's people who own their properties and have wealth and have wealth to transfer to the next generation and people who don't. And that's not sustainable for a democracy. If again, democracy is about learning to live together in a community where people disagree and have different interests and needs. Michael, we're going to come back again with you in a few moments, but I'd like you both to stay here in case there are some audience questions.

But before we do that, our reporter here in Nanaimo, Claire Palmer, hit the streets to ask people some questions about their experiences with the housing crisis. So can you tell me how is the cost of housing rising in the last few years, how has that affected you? We've been homeowners for like 23 years, but our daughter and son-in-law are moving out to Alberta because they won't ever be able to buy a house here. And even rental is incredibly expensive. It is really frustrating that all these young people don't feel like they can really make a home here. My name is Grayson Heeb. I'm a third-year student at VIU.

My living situation involves me and my mom living with my grandparents and because me and my partner wanted to move in together, we are now both also living there. And part of what motivated that choice was just how expensive everything is. And every little while we'll look and see what options there are for housing. And it's all pretty terrible.

It's not even like we are dealing with trying for home ownership, like we're trying to get into the rental market. Like the starting option isn't even realistic. Is that disappointing for you having grown up in the area that you can't even get into the rental market here? Hugely. Yeah. Yeah, it's, um, I remember my mom renting all growing up in Nanaimo, and that always involved a lot of assistance from my grandparents, to my understanding, or student loans, because she raised me while she was a student at VIU. And I, as I always kind of thought that that would be an option or something that I could even attempt but I yeah I worked full-time for two years

before coming to VIU and even with that money when I was coming home with like a thousand dollars every two weeks and then tips for pizza delivery like still wasn't something that was even remotely achievable. My name is Babri Gill and I'm a second year history major at VIU. My name is Eden Hudson and I'm a fourth year VIU student. How has the cost of housing in Nanaimo affected you guys? Most of my income goes to my rent and then anything left over is for my groceries. I've had family tell me that these are supposed to be the best years of my life but I'm living paycheck to paycheck and and paying a massive amount for rent and with little money left over

And I don't know if I want this to be the best years of my life Yeah I'm seeing a lot of nodding around the room and I want to ask you a question Gregor but I want to say that this is an opportunity for those of you nodding to add your two cents worth. We can take a couple of questions or statements. Please go ahead. We are parents of two young adults in their mid to late 20s with no hope of buying a home of their own. And as parents, it breaks my heart. But I realize they may have to go farther afield to find not only a home that they can afford,

but a job that will allow them to afford a home. And it's just heartbreaking. So what's their interim solution? Well my youngest actually is on a work study visa in Australia and he's extended that a year to figure it out. My oldest is actually a Red Seal auto mechanic but things are shifting in that industry and he's trying to figure out what his next most sustainable move is. So we're all kind of, right now our oldest lives with us.

It grates on him. I love it, but I'm biased. Yeah. Great. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it. Sir, please go ahead. Yeah, thanks.

My name is Guy Dawn C. I live in Yellow Point locally and I've spent the last nine years writing a book called On The Economics of Kindness, which goes into housing. I've read your book among others, Greggy. In Zurich, 34% of all houses are housing cooperatives. In Vienna, it's 25%. In a housing cooperative, you eliminate the landlord dynamic,

you reclaim democracy in the housing realm. If the Bank of Canada was managed democratically, all of the finance can be produced by zero interest loans or even free money created by the Bank of Canada. If there was democracy around the way wealth is passed on, all of us who own properties would have a land value tax imposed on us at the time we sell, and percentage of that money would go back

to the third of the population, who as Gregor says, are being cut out entirely. And if this was a real democracy, all progress in democracy has come into pass money would go back to the third of the population who, as Gregor says, are being cut out entirely. And if this was a real democracy, all progress in democracy has come into pass by protest, agitation, organizing. The first unions, because the workers organized, but the people who are struggling in the housing crisis are not organized. If they were to get together, and they're running the shops, they're running the businesses, they're our economy, if they get together and said, solve this problem within this time limit, but we're going on

a strike one hour every Saturday morning, then two hours, then three hours, every employer is going to be phoning council, phoning government saying, fix this problem. Have non-profits build housing cooperatives with finance from the central bank, and we can solve this problem within 10 years, get it all cleared, and we can eliminate landlordism and the abuses that go with that as well. So there's so many solutions as Gregor you know, but we can do this. We shouldn't say this is not a solvable problem.

It's a huge problem. It is solvable. Thanks. Thank you very much for that. Just as a wrap up Gregor, just listening to again to what we heard on with the comments on tape, but also what you're hearing here. Is it unsolvable? No, I don't think it is.

But, and I agree with Guy, it is not unsolvable. It's going to take years, perhaps decades. I think it's been brewing. Michael, maybe you'd agree with for at least 30 years, maybe longer. But it is not going to be tweaks. It's not going to be, well, a little bit of a zoning change. It's going to be dozens upon dozens of changes

at all levels of government. And people like me who live in a lovely old shady area, neighbourhood saying, actually I have to accept it's going to change. It's not going to look the same as it has since I bought this house. Things have to change in this country significantly at all levels when it comes to housing,

if we want this problem and our communities to get better. We'll come back to both of you later on in the show. Thank you very much for being here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're listening to Ideas from Nanaimo, British Columbia.

This episode is part of our series, Ideas for a Better Canada. We're heard on CBC Radio 1 in Canada, on US Public Radio, across North America, on SiriusXM, on World Radio Paris, and in Australia on ABC Radio National. Stream us around the world at cbc.ca slash ideas and find us wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nala Ayed. When they predict we'll fall, we rise to the challenge. When they say we're not a country, we stand on guard.

This land taught us to be brave and caring, to protect our values, to leave no one behind. Canada is on the line, and it's time to vote as though our country depends on it, because like never before, it does. I'm Jonathan Pedneau, co-leader of the Green Party of Canada. This election, each vote makes a difference. Authorized by the Registered Agent of the Green Party of Canada. In the fall of 2001, while Americans were still grappling with the horror of September 11th, envelopes started showing up at media outlets and government buildings,

filled with a white lethal powder, anthrax. But what's strange is if you ask people now what happened with that story, almost no one knows. It's like the whole thing just disappeared. Who mailed those letters? Do you know? From Wolf Entertainment, USG Audio, and CBC podcasts, this is Aftermath, the hunt for the anthrax killer. Available now. In our series, Ideas for a Better Canada, we're hosting discussions in cities across the country about local solutions that can inspire national change.

This episode comes from the Harbourfront Library in Nanaimo, BC, which, like many other cities, is dealing with a severe housing crisis. And we're asking, how does the housing crisis affect the health of our democracy? So of course one extreme manifestation and perhaps the most visible one of the housing crisis is homelessness. Nanaimo, like Victoria and Vancouver and cities across this country have seen a rapid rise in street homelessness

over the past five years. In Nanaimo's last survey of homelessness, a vast majority said their number one barrier to finding housing was simple, low income and high rent. Most surveyed also reported living with mental health issues and addictions and one third specifically reported challenges with an acquired brain injury. Questions on brain injury were only recently added to official surveys of homelessness across the country.

At the bottom of a 2020 report on this, it says this, thanks to Kix Sitton, Executive Director of the Nanaimo Brain Injury Society for being the driving force behind inclusion of this important question on the national survey. There she is with us. Kix Sitton from the Nanaimo Brain Injury Society. Could you speak to what the relationship is between brain injury and homelessness? Yeah, absolutely.

First of all, I applaud CBC ideas for including brain injury in this conversation. It's critical to understand the intersection of brain injury, mental health, substance use, and homelessness. And this may not make great radio, so I apologize Nala, but a show of hands in the audience. If you yourself have experienced a brain injury or you know somebody who has experienced a brain injury, that includes concussion, stroke, motor vehicle accidents, sports accidents. So let's just take a look around, hold your hands up and just have a look around in the audience. Almost everyone has their hand up.

Almost everyone has their hands up. So we know that brain injury is what's called a silent epidemic. The numbers are significant and yet we're not talking about it. So I'm really excited that we're here tonight. And then the connection between brain injury and housing. So you can see that cascade of events. If you experience a brain injury and you're no longer able to maintain employment, maintain housing, maintain

your relationships, that Gregor, Craigie talked about the crumbling foundation of the housing crisis. Think about the foundation of your life and how a brain injury would affect that foundation, those critical pieces. That can happen. So there's the connection with homelessness, but there's also an extra burden for someone with a brain injury in accessing any supportive housing

that might be available. Can you talk about that? Yeah, absolutely. So we can think of, reflecting on two components of this. One is the affordability. For folks on persons with disability benefits, for a single person, that's capped at $1,500 a month. That's your check, that's your income, that covers everything. And what was the cost of a one-bedroom apartment?

I think it was $1,800. $1,800. Yeah. So that cuts out the affordability for anyone on disability benefits. How would you make space for unhoused people in this community? It's a simple question again, but it's not as easy to answer. Yeah, complex question. So what we see in the recommendations that have come from the provincial conversations that we've had around the BC Consentus on brain injury, mental health and substance use, we've spent three years talking about this intersection.

And the recommendations that come from that work, along with the national strategy on brain injuries that is moving forward, is an integrated care approach. What we need is to look at the silos of care and break down those silos and see that we need a holistic approach to support the person with the brain injury and their family as the centre and driving those decisions. And you know we see the visibility on our streets, certainly with the homelessness population, and 50% the research shows that 50% of the homeless population is living with a brain injury. So that's a significant issue, but we need all levels of government working together. As we sort of said at the beginning, we're really here to kind of explore ways that the

housing crisis affects our democracy. And so let me ask you this, what do you see as a relationship between the housing and mental health crisis and the health of our democracy? So I was thinking about our clients who come through our doors and engage to give back to our communities. So the folks who are able to contribute in that way are the folks who have some sort of stable housing, supportive families, some kind of income. But the folks who are not, and the people that we support with housing, with mental

health supports, with addressing the substance use disorder, those folks don't access those other programs. So without those basic needs, they are excluded from those other opportunities. Thank you very much, and we're hoping to have you back for any questions that come up. But thank you very much, Kik Siten. APPLAUSE

Nanaimo is on the traditional territory of the Sunneimokh First Nation. By population it is roughly 2,000 members. Joan Brown is the Chief Administrative Officer of the Sunneimokh First Nation and she joins me now. Thank you for being here. Could you speak to what unique pressures there are? Does the cost and the shortage of housing have for members of the Sunaymok and other Indigenous people in Nanaimo?

Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. Certainly the pressures are not unique to us without a doubt. But we think about for us is not only housing, but it's the other losses that we've experienced. So when we think about the level of poverty, it's not just housing.

And for us is like trying to restore, reclaim a way of being that really contributes to the overall wellness of our community. So those pressures are immense, especially for the generations that are following. So for us is like, it's a long way back for the young people. But what most people don't understand when we talk about the significance of our territory, there's many gifts associated with every site.

So when we're displaced, what our nation is doing, our Chief in Council, restoring, reclaiming some of our traditional territories, it's huge in restoring that sense of community and overall wellness. You mentioned that the Sonoma Nation has worked with the city and the province to create some housing projects. Could you speak to just how effective that is as a solution to some of this? And what our nation says, and it's really one of the strengths and everyone's talking about is taking down those silos and really what it means to have partnerships, BC housing without a doubt, understanding our way of being and moving in that direction. The city of course creating that space and working together the school district, taking down those silos is from an ancestral lens is really understanding how to work in a meaningful way, drawing strength from both ways of being

to produce a strong outcome. What we talk about often is reconciling with the land. People don't really think about in that context, they just think about housing, putting roofs over the heads. We think about a whole systemic way of approaching things, but in our way of being, if we restore the health of the land, you'll see the magic in returning to the first teacher, the first healer,

and really benefiting from the curative properties of the land. That's the cornerstone. That's our way of being. And that's what we try to instill with all of our project. We say the land walks first. Love and respect for the land and each other is profound.

And if we walk in that way, start taking care of each other, it just be amazing. And that's the way of the old people. Thank you so much for being here, Joan. Really appreciate it. Yeah. for being here, Joan. Really appreciate it. Joan Brown is the chief administrative officer of the Snow Neymar First Nation. For a long time, Vancouver Island was the victim of a stereotype, as we mentioned earlier, perhaps a little bit mean-spirited,

a place for vacations and a place to retire. In other words, as some people call it, newlyweds and nearly-deads. But cities like Victoria and Nanaimo are attracting some people call it, newlyweds and nearly-deads. But cities like Victoria and Nanaimo are attracting younger people, students, new families and new businesses. And my next guest wears a few different hats that are related to all this. He is a refugee resettlement worker helping refugees start a new life in Canada. He is American, working in Canada and hoping to stay. He's also a writer for Strong Towns in Nanaimo,

a local urbanism and density advocacy group. Hello, Luis. Thank you for being here. Hi, thank you so much for having me. So let me start with a very personal question. You're young, you're a relative newcomer who wants to stay. How hard has it been for you to find housing that's affordable? It's hard, but we're creative young people. We find ways of co-living, we find workarounds. It's hard. For me, I've found a home with an incredibly cheap room. I would love to move, I've found a home with an incredibly cheap room. I would love to move, but an incredibly cheap room. I've found a way, but not everyone does. And increasingly so, when you leave that, you're back out into the ocean. And people are staying in, and I think we've touched on this a lot, in poor conditions, not because they want to,

but because of what's going on outside their house. As part of your work with this organization that you're with, you try to actually change opinions on the need to increase urban density, for example, and to look at creative ways of finding housing solutions. Can you talk about how you do that? What do you do? Yeah, it's a complex conversation because I think many people, when they think about what a home was for them when they were a kid in the 1950s, 1960s, it was a bungalow,

it was cheap. and that's what family housing looks like. That's what, in your mind, affordable housing looked like for you growing up. But that's not what the affordable housing of our generation looks like. It's different. It's townhouses, it's apartments, believe it or not. And for us, it's changing the conversation that Nanaimo is changing. And what outcome do we want? Do we want to preserve these bungalows and the way they look and the imagination of the affordability of past times? Or do we want the outcome of that, which is affordable housing? And that means that the community, as Gregor was saying, must change.

But it's framing that in a positive light for our kids, our friends, our newcomers. My clients, they don't understand what's wrong with us. Why is housing expensive here? It wasn't where they're from. For them, it's like, where are the cranes? Why aren't you building housing? If you told them the actual reason, oh, well, you know, if you have the roofs this way and it needs to be, you know, 10.6, 10.5 meters, anything above that, well, you need a variance. So you got to go the city and then you gotta go through this whole process. You're talking about the red tape.

Exactly. For them it's, well, I have more kids, I need more rooms. I need house with more rooms. Why aren't we building that? And so I think it's going out and challenging these perceptions for the positive outcomes that we want to see. If there were one thing that you could kind of look at or use it as an example from Nanaimo that could be scaled up to offer solutions to for the rest of the country for the housing

crisis, what would that be? Something that's done here that could be modeled elsewhere. Yeah, Nanaimo is very pro-housing. I think we've made that connection finally, that yes, we need to change. And now what are the systems that we need to change to encourage that? There's amazing work being done at the city to these ancient design rules from the 90s. You know, we're reforming that. Nanaimo has really recognized the depth of the situation and what's so amazing is we're doing what Vancouver should have done back in the 1990s.

And I think it's a long road ahead and there's more on affordability, but we're making the right choices. Now I think there's more to affordability, but we're making the right choices now. I think there's more to be made, but we're working our way there. Thank you very much for being here, Louis. Thank you. Thank you, Louis James. So we're gonna take a few more questions.

Please go ahead. I'd like to advocate for true affordable housing. The trailer park. And no, I'm not bubbles, but I would prefer to call them manufactured home communities. And in a manufactured home community, you can put a brand new 1,500 square foot home built to CSA specifications,

two by six walls, fully insulated with appliances on a pad for $300,000. Now, I have three millennial children and they have been shut out of the market and that's why I'm here. Now, across the United States, there are many, many manufactured home parks, same as here in Canada.

Okay. And these are very, very affordable. And they're expanding it. They're profitable. And there's so many ways to do it, especially now that there's federal lands that are going to become available. Okay. Yeah.

Thank you very much. Please go ahead. I am in my mid-30s. I grew up in the NIMO. Can't say I was born here, but I don't remember anywhere else I moved here when I was six months old. So I don't want to leave this community. And this is where I grew up.

This is where my support network is. We tried to do everything right. I'm the first person in my family to go to university. I've got my bachelor's, I've got what I consider to be a pretty good job. My wife makes more than minimum wage. I thought when we were making what we're making now, we wouldn't have concerns about housing.

We moved into my mom's basement suite to save up for a down payment and that was for five years. It's been ten and we just can't get there and I just it's hard when it feels like society isn't delivering on what was promised to us. I just think in Canada, we have this knack for, I mean, we're kind of drifting away from it now, but where we just, we compare ourselves to America. We're just better than America. And I just don't think that that is enough anymore.

I think we need to be comparing ourselves to European countries and looking around the world for solutions instead of just saying, oh, we're better than down south. Okay. Thank you. Last comment over here, please. Hi. My name is Jess Wilder. I am a family and addictions medicine doctor here in our community.

I'm also a hospitalist doctor, which means I'm a doctor who takes care of patients who are admitted into the hospital. And I have been in this community for six years, and I see the impacts of homelessness on my patients. Primarily the populations that I work with are vulnerable, marginalized, indigenous, unhoused people who use substances. I see right now a government that is reactionary in its policies. We are putting out fires in our healthcare system. We have emergency departments that are overflowing. I'm admitting patients who are sitting in a stretcher by the ambulance bay doors because

we no longer even have hallways to put my patients in. And I see the way that lack of affordable housing and lack of access to nutrition in a time when we're having our food banks accessed in disproportionate amounts we've never seen before. What I need to see, you know, I'm 33 years old. I'm five years into my career. I never expected to be practicing as a doctor in a poly crisis. What I want to see from our politicians is people who are willing to think more than four

years into the future and politicians who are willing to plant seeds that will grow into trees whose shade they will never sit in. And I don't see that in any of our politicians these days and I'm worried about what that means for my generation who is inheriting this world. Thank you very much for your intervention. Thank you for that. Really appreciate hearing the experiences as they happen to you every day. And it's a really good time to talk to our next guest.

Leonard Krogh was born right here in Nanaimo. He grew up in Coombs in the Nanaimo regional district. Mayor Krogh has a long political connection to Nanaimo. For over a decade, he was an NDP MLA for the riding. First elected in 2005, he served in opposition as critic for the attorney general. He was first elected mayor of Nanaimo in 2018 and reelected in 2022.

Welcome Mayor Krogh. Thank you very much and honored to be here tonight on Seneem at traditional territoryritory with my friends Joan and Randy who I've known for a very long time. Thank you for being here and thanks for agreeing to speak with us. To actually address every comment we've heard tonight would take us all night. But I think the last speaker really wrapped up the question. Do we have governments that are capable of dealing with poly crises and long-term crises when every four years is the focus?

We do actually and I'm going to throw it back to the audience. Don't blame the politicians, you elect them and you vote on the basis of party and you vote on the basis of fear and you vote on the basis of self-interest for a multitude of things. Some of these problems will solve themselves to some extent. The one thing I want to emphasize tonight that I've heard from several people very easily and they use the term homelessness. I talk about the mental health, addictions, trauma and brain injury crisis which manifests itself in homelessness and the kind of petty crime associated with drug addiction.

And that is the population that is on our streets in many cases. Not everyone. There are simply people out there who are too poor and don't have enough income to afford accommodation. Then we're talking about a range of other folks, people who have already identified themselves here today, who can't afford market housing. We have seen some dramatic changes,

and I'm going to be the old man in the room here tonight. I remember the housing peak in this community across this country, 80, 81. The house my wife and I bought, and we waited 10 years into our marriage before we bought a house, by, 81, the house my wife and I bought, and we waited 10 years into our marriage before we bought a house, by

the way, was literally half the price it was two years prior. And the interest rate was 12%. So when I hear, no offence to everybody and their concerns, the incredible negativity around this, I got news for you. As a lefty, capitalism collapses every once in a while.

And markets will collapse and things will get overbuilt. The other thing we have to think about is we are devoted to the concept of private ownership in this country. Immigrants come here for that very reason. And it is, as Thomas King said in his book, The Inconvenient Indian, it's about the land. It's about the land. It's about the land. And that's what people strive for. Immigrants who come here, the kinds of folks that are being helped, within a generation or two have often succeeded beyond the expectations of

people who have lived here for, and families who have lived here for generations. It is inevitable. Part of it is an unwillingness to make the kinds of sacrifices that are necessary to obtain home ownership. Part of it is the unwillingness to accept the fact that we are not going to live in single family dwellings the way my generation did and was able to acquire within reason.

And you're gonna live in smaller units. You're gonna live in units like my son did when he was living in Japan, our son, for two years working in Japan. It was small, but it was affordable. I find it hard to get my head around the idea that these problems will solve themselves to quote back to you. But what do you, I'm just curious, which part of that did you mean would solve it?

When I say it will solve itself, to some extent, there will be another collapse, there will be another downturn, house prices will not remain up forever. That is a reality of the marketplace. And it will have a very negative impact, frankly, on my generation who own the real estate, but it will have a positive impact on our children. If I can say even more cheekily, when my generation pops off, we're going to leave money to our kids. And knowing many of the people in this audience

tonight, I can see quite bluntly, your children are going to be just fine, thank you very much. Don't worry about them too much because there is a significant accumulation of wealth through a tax system that doesn't operate fairly, through the benefits of speculation

and population growth that is going to see some benefit passed on. It is only part of the solution. We also have to wrap around our heads of speculation and population growth that is going to see some benefit passed on. It is only part of the solution. We also have to wrap around our heads around the concept that Guy talked about. In Europe, you will live generation after generation in rental apartments and your expectation is that there will be methods to pass that on, but you will not expect to own a private dwelling.

And that, however, is the toughest one to get passed for many people. I can tell you, for my generation, impossible. We all wanted to own a home, and most of us luckily achieved it. That may not be possible for the generations that follow. So that's home ownership, but what about the price of rent, for example?

The price of rent, as Gregor talked about it, supply is an issue and there are two ways to deal with the price of rent. Either the government steps in and builds the housing and most particularly and my greatest concern is for those people who are literally on the streets as we're talking about it tonight and you can see those folks through the window. The government builds housing or either that or subsidizes the incomes of people so they can afford the housing. Those are the two basic choices. There is no other way around it. Or you have a marketplace that overbuilds

as I say as part of the solution, stabilises rents. But that is a long-term thing. In the immediate term, we should be building like crazy and it needs to be government-driven for those who can't afford it. Let us have a long-term solution. In the immediate term, we should be building like crazy and it needs to be government-driven for those who can't afford it.

Let us not pretend for a moment that on a minimum wage in British Columbia that you are going to be able to afford the rental of a standard one-bedroom apartment. So back to the supply question, Louis James talked about the red tape. We can get into the details, but that is an issue that comes up in every city. So back to the supply question. Lewis James talked about the red tape.

I mean, we can get into the details, but that is an issue that comes up in every city. What is your government doing to eliminate the red tape to allow for more supply to materialize? We're improving our permitting process, but we're also under a provincial mandate, as many people know, so that those nice single-family homes

where Len and Sharon Krogh live can now see four units on a basic city lot. Not going to be popular with a lot of people. Every time there's a proposal for a development in a neighbourhood, I can assure you that those in that

neighbourhood are opposed to it if it involves multi-residential building. As Pogo said, we have met the enemy and he is us. Just a couple more questions specifically on the homelessness crisis. How do you balance kind of this rapid growth of the city

with the fact that many people, you know, oppose support housing projects that you're very much in favor of, you know, with concerns about safety and peace in neighborhoods? How do you do that? Well, notwithstanding the comments about politicians, I have a lefty greeny council, as I call it. And I hate to disappoint folks who don't want to see their neighbourhoods change, but the

reality is we have approved most of the development proposals that have come before us, and I see my councillors nodding as I say it, because we recognize that we have to play that role. And that means speaking to neighbourhoods and saying you have to do it. If it gives anyone any comfort, I wasn't happy with the multi-residential units built in my neighbourhood 30 years ago for seniors.

But if Sharon and I get tired of living in our house, I can go a block down the street and stay in the same neighbourhood now. Last thing on the homelessness issue, it's hard to say where the responsibility lies. It has several layers. There are gaps in healthcare, mental health supports, addiction supports.

And so I'm wondering, just as a general question, has Nanaimo done, the city of Nanaimo, done everything possible in its power to get some of those people back into homes? We have cooperated with BC Housing pursuant to a memorandum of understanding. We have supported and taken the political flack when it comes to

putting supportive housing units in various neighbourhoods which have not been popular or welcomed by people. Often facing campaigns of fear and prejudice and concerns about people who are vulnerable, people suffering from mental health, addiction, trauma and brain injury issues.

That's what you do. And you advocate loudly. And I would give with great respect that say this city in particular, I and the council who've been very incredibly supportive and speaking out as well, have been advocating on around these issues for a very long time.

Ain't always popular, but it is the right thing to do. This is 30, 40 years of failed social and health policy. It is not going to get fixed overnight. Government needs to . I have said this to the premier, I have said it for over five years.

You acknowledge the problem and God knows when you acknowledge the problem as a politician people expect you to fix it so nobody wants to. Secondly you announce the money for the bricks and mortar because we don't have the facilities and housing

necessary. Thirdly you announce the money for the colleges and universities to train the people to do the work because it is demanding awful, soul-sucking work sometimes to work with people who are deep in psychosis, who have all sorts of addiction and mental health issues.

And then you tell the people honestly, it took us 30, 40 years to get there, it's going to take us a while to get out. But let us stop pretending, as Gregor has said, it's not the issue in everyone's lips. I'm the mayor of a city, I'm supposed to be worried about parks and recreation and water and sewer and garbage and adding to the port theatre. Instead, the biggest single source of complaint and concern is around what we've been

talking about tonight. And to come back to all the other speakers, you're absolutely right. You can't talk about us functioning happy democracy if people are absolutely absorbed every day with literally surviving in our streets or struggling to keep their lives happy democracy if people are absolutely absorbed every day with literally

surviving in our streets or struggling to keep the housing if they have it. Thank you. I'd like to hear someone here respond to some of what the mayor has had to say. Please go ahead. Hi my name is Wanda LeBlanc. I was born and raised in Nanaimo. I'm a homeowner. I was a social worker for 21 years and I volunteer in a shelter. I'm involved with Doctors for Safer Drug Policy and Mom Stop the Harm. So I think I have a fairly good handle on what's going on out there. And I have to say that sitting and listening to Mayor Crog is really upsetting for me. I have a son who has substance use issues, who was unhoused in this community for a year, who finally got housing in

December of this year, has since gained 20 pounds, is no longer in psychosis, is supported, clothed, fed and warm. And we have a relationship that we haven't had for years only because he has those things and he's no longer seeking survival. You cannot expect people to move forward in their lives without food, clothing and shelter. This council spends more money on

bicycle lanes and policing than they do on providing a warming shelter in the middle of January in the freezing temperatures and people have nowhere to go from 7 o'clock in the morning until 7 o'clock at night when they can check into their shelter. That is not making homelessness a priority. Thank you. Not a priority. Is that true? Well, it depends on how you look at this. And I'm sympathetic to what you've had to say, and you're absolutely right. Providing housing for people is crucial. But I think I said that, and maybe you didn't understand what I was trying to say. Municipal governments cannot fix this.

And whatever we do, the provincial government will step away and leave it to us to continue to do so, which is what the city of Vancouver did for a long time. And it's why you might remember a former mayor a few years ago was asking the senior government for $400 million to meet what they anticipated might be their deficit. Cities cannot deliver those kinds of services.

Mental health, addictions, housing, all of those things are provincial and or federal responsibilities. And I am not, I will tell you philosophically, I am not going to commit the city to delivering services that properly belong to the provincial and federal governments. Because the rate of the rate of delivering services that properly belong to the provincial and federal governments

Because the ratepayers of this community will never be able to solve the problem The senior governments will step back because we'll be looking after their issues and that may sound harsh but and if you Wish something different vote accordingly and I say that kind of cheekily because I take this as a principled position for me. There's a constitution, there are rules, there are

responsibilities. I don't expect the federal government to pay for city parks and recreation. I don't expect them to worry about water and sewer and garbage. That's our job. I want to ask the same question

to Gregor. Gregor, is this just beyond the municipal responsibility? I hate to be the journalist sitting next to a politician and agreeing.

However, I've sat through enough municipal budgetary sessions where you look at the finer prints. I'm not arguing with you, ma'am, my heart goes out to you for what you've gone through with

your son, and I'm so glad he is now housed. But I do think there's a high level of truth to the fact that municipalities are more cash strapped than provincial and federal governments. I always think, and I say this to my kids and then they say it to me and they're always right, there's always more you can do, and that's no disrespect, Mayor Croak, but there's always more you can do. And that's no disrespect, Mayor Croak, but there's always more you can do. But the one thing that hit me about what you said, I have talked to and talked to so many social workers,

street nurses, doctors working with addiction, people, housing advocates in the last three or four years who said exactly what you said. When a person is housed, their addiction, their mental health struggles or whatever are a different thing entirely. And the thing that shocked me was, because I've always associated homelessness

with addiction and mental health crisis, is more and more of the people that we, the street nurses and social workers are treating, deal with, are homeless for economic reasons, first and foremost. They may look like they're struggling with mental health, they are struggling with mental health or addiction, but more and more and more and more,

it's because of the economy. It's because of housing costs and this is an economic crisis that is bleeding into mental health and addiction. What is one thing you heard today on ways, very generally speaking, on ways of mitigating the housing crisis that you think is a good

starting point to ensure that nobody is left behind in our democracy? I would encourage all of you to vote, to hold politicians to account and advocate on behalf of your fellow citizens who are without housing. I can tell you, politicians pay attention to letters, not form letters, real letters, good old-fashioned letters. I see a constituency assistant here for one of our local MLA's nodding sagely. People pay attention to it.

You need to emphasize what I've been saying all night. We are in a crisis. You need to tell the politicians it's a crisis. And you need to be prepared to make the sacrifices that are necessary to alleviate the pain and suffering that has arisen from that crisis.

TREGOR, LAST WORD. I am a hopeful person by nature, but I am not a person who is not to alleviate the pain and suffering that has arisen from that crisis. Treasurer, last word. I am a hopeful person by nature, but I am not very optimistic that this is going to be fixed anytime soon. And it gives me no pleasure at all to say that, but I think as Mayor Croak said, it's taken decades to get here, and sadly, even though it could be addressed sooner, it will take decades to get out. I hope we see meaningful improvement in the next few years but if

I found one bit of optimism researching this book and writing it it is that I think old divides are starting to blur and people are coming together. Mayor Crowe who keeps calling himself a lefty said and I listened very carefully you said yes supportive housing government paying for the most vulnerable is key, or can be one of the two possibilities is key. Also unleashing the power of the market and people's demand to make money. And increasingly over the last few years, now I've heard people on the traditional left and the traditional right start to say the same things.

I've heard social housing providers agree with chambers of commerce. If and where I take optimism is that more people starting very slowly to be willing to make compromises to accept change. But sadly I think it may even get worse in this country before it gets better. Thank you very much

all of you for taking our questions. I want to go through the list of our panelists and I would love your help to thank them with us. Gregor Craigie from CBC radio here on the island, and author of Our Crumbling Foundation. Leonard Crowe, Mayor of Nanaimo. Kik Sitten, who is the Executive Director of the Nanaimo Brain Injury Society. Joan Brown, CAO of the Sunanamook First Nation. Louis James from Strong Towns Nanaimo and

Michael McKenzie, Jarosławski Chair in Trust and Political Leadership at Vancouver Island. This episode is part of our series Ideas for a Better Canada in partnership with the Samara Centre for Democracy. This program was produced by Matthew Lazen Rider. Our technical producer for Ideas is Danielle Duval. Our web producer is Lisa Ayuso. Senior producer, Nikola Lucic. Greg Kelly is the executive producer of Ideas. And I'm Nala Ayed.

of ideas, and I'm Nala Ayed.