Quote:
Originally Posted by Locke
I know, and that sucks, but the answer has been staring us in the face since the Thatcher Era.
England has had Council Estates and Communal housing since seemingly forever.
Government owned, built and operated housing. It sucks. But it provides inexpensive housing for low-income workers, seniors and immigrants that allows them to save money as they work to move to something better.
Its not ideal, but I simply do not see the free-market solving the housing crisis.
Its just not in their best interest.
And yes. There will be huge swathes of people from homeowners to construction, to builders and on and on and on....that will scream bloody murder.
But if someone has a better idea, I'm all ears.
|
The issue, as I see it, is that governments in Canada at all levels and of all ideology do not want to be in the business of operating anything. They will fund projects and invest in solutions but they have no interest in implementing anything and being solely responsible. Because of that we end up in situations with intermediaries who inevitably need to generate some sort of return and profit for their involvement which erodes the whole premise behind the projects (ie. affordable or low income housing becomes less affordable because of all the hands in the cookie jar.)
We joke a fair bit about how inefficient the government is when it comes to operating projects or assets but the other side of the coin is that handing things off leads to profiteering.