Written by Kent

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As you are no doubt aware, Calgary is experiencing a housing crisis that is costing taxpayers dearly for unnecessary social services, shelters, health care, crime etc., which says nothing about the human dignity costs associated with this unfortunate situation. The private marketplace has not built an adequate supply of affordable houses for over a generation.
There is a group in Calgary trying to bring an end to this state of affairs. It is a grass-roots organization made up of concerned citizens, students and social activists. The organization is called the "Calgary Housing Action Initiative" or "Chai" for short. I recently attended one of their meetings to learn more about the issue and see what if anything can be done about the housing crisis.
What "Chai" is advocating for is a commitment of 1% of each level of government’s budget needs to be invested annually in diverse housing options. These funds would be used to find and build diverse housing options for individuals and families. The organization believes that intelligent models exist that can ensure diverse and long term affordable housing options for all.
One such model is co-operative housing, which offers a home, not an investment. Co-ops are democratically run by those who live there. The full monthly housing charges rise only as the co-op’s costs increase, not at the whim of a greedy landlord. Co-ops encourage mixed incomes to live together to build strong communities.
Land trusts are another great model. In a land trust, residents do not own the land but lease it on a 99-year basis. Housing on the land is rented or owned by residents. Taking the high cost of land out of the picture allows housing to be more affordable into the future. Another interesting idea is the concept of "inclusionary zoning". Inclusionary zoning allows for diverse neighborhoods to grow naturally. Inclusionary zoning allows for all income groups to be part of each community. It neither ghettoizes the poor or gentrifies the rich. It allows communities to be shared, developed and cared for by all.
Combining both land trusts and co-op housing and inclusionary zoning produces safe, stable, healthy and affordable housing for everyone in the community. Ask your community association and politicians why more diverse housing options are not being built? Help create viable housing solutions today!

Here is a sample of a newsletter. Please make edit suggestions or create your own newsletter to post on this forum! Submit these to your local community newsletter. Go to http://www.calgaryarea.com/, click on your community to out contact info to your local community newsletter.
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Calgary is experiencing a housing crisis that is costing taxpayers dearly for unnecessary social services, shelters, health care, crime etc. The market has not built an adequate supply of affordable houses for over a generation. Something needs to be done immediately to change this.

One percent of each level of government’s budget needs to be invested annually in diverse housing options. We need intelligent models that will ensure diverse and long term affordable housing options for all.

One such model is co-operative housing, which offers a home, not an investment. Co-ops are democratically run by those who live there. The full monthly housing charges rise only as the co-op’s costs increase, not at the whim of a greedy landlord. Co-ops encourage mixed incomes to live together to build strong communities.

Land trusts are another great model. In a land trust, residents do not own the land but lease it on a 99-year basis. Housing on the land is rented or owned by residents. Taking the high cost of land out of the picture allows housing to be more affordable into the future.

Combining both land trusts and co-op housing produces safe, stable, healthy, inclusive and affordable housing for everyone in the community. Ask your community association and politicians why more diverse housing options are not being built? Help create viable housing solutions today!

Renters priced out of homes
400% hikes leave tenants facing cold
Rent on Ron Brunt's small apartment is going from $650 to $2,500 on May 1.

Kelly Cryderman, Calgary Herald
Published: Monday, February 12, 2007
Tenants are being hit with "economic evictions" where huge rent increases are charged to move residents out of a building for condo conversions or renovations that allow owners to cash in on the city's soaring property market, government officials and residents believe.
Ron Brunt, 48, has been told his rent is going up almost 400 per cent from $650 to $2,500 a month as of May 1.
"We're pretty much bottom feeders. This is probably one of the last refuges for the little guy," said Brunt, who said he suffers from depression and is on a leave from work. With rental housing scarce, Brunt said he doesn't know where he will go.
Landlord Alnoor Kassam said it was a wrenching decision to raise rents in his Mount Royal lowrise on tenants such as Brunt.
"Morally, yes, it's very difficult what I am doing. I am not doing this with glee and joy," Kassam said. "I have a lot of concern, and my heart goes out to them."
In the end, he said, it's a business decision.
"The economics of buying the property and renting it out only work at those types of numbers," he said. "The property has deteriorated without any investment."
Calgary's vacancy rate is about 0.5 per cent. The pace of buildings being turned into condos has increased and the construction of new rental buildings has effectively ground to a halt.
"I do think there's a loophole. And the market is not working properly at the moment," said Madeleine King, the ward alderman. "Instinctively as Albertans we believe very, very strongly in the market economy. But there are times when we're all aware that it needs a bit of tweaking. And this is one of them."
Kassam acknowledges he anticipated that sharp rent increase, set to take effect May 1, would get tenants out quickly so renovations to turn the units into executive suites could go ahead. Kassam, who is planning a run for mayor in the municipal election this fall, will rent the furnished upscale suites for $2,200 to $3,000 per month.
What he is doing is perfectly legal. In Alberta, a landlord can raise the rent every six months. There is no limit on the size of the increase.
The government requires landlords to give 180 days notice if they are going to evict tenants in order to convert the units into condominiums. But if the owners want residents out faster -- perhaps so renovations can get done more quickly -- they can jack up the rent with three months notice.
For instance, for a condominium conversion at Apartment Europe in Mission last summer, residents were told they had until Jan. 31 to move out, but their rent was skyrocketing to $2,000 a month from $595 as of Nov. 1.
The Alberta government has received half a dozen complaints of this happening in the past year, mostly from Calgary.
"What we're starting to see, especially in Calgary because of the low vacancy rate, is what appears to be 'economic evictions,' " said Eoin Kenny, a spokesman for Service Alberta. "We would take a very dim view if it could be proven that the landlord's ultimate goal was to clear the property out for condominiums."
But even if it's not for a condo conversion, the rent increase is going hit the 15 residents at Kassam's Beverly Anne apartments hard.
Most units have less than 500 square feet. They are only rented to single people. But they provide an important source of affordable housing and some residents -- including 79-year-old in-house caretaker Lloyd Robertson -- have been living there for 20 years.
"We're not the only ones that this has been done to. This has been done all over the city," Robertson said. "The problem is there's no housing for these people to go to. In a situation like this, I have no idea what these people are going to do."
Tenant Dave Morisset, 44, who makes his living selling sports collectibles and antiques, said he believes there should be rent controls in Alberta. "The housing market is insane, I think."
The situation could not occur in B.C. or Ontario, where rent controls are in place.
In B.C., landlords are limited to raising the rent of an occupied suite by two per cent a year, plus the cost of living index. In 2006, that meant a four per cent rental hike cap. Anything more requires agreement from the tenant, or a ruling from the Residential Tenancy Office.
In Ontario, the situation is much the same. Rent increases are limited to once a year based on the increase in the consumer price index. A landlord cannot evict tenants for the purpose of a condo conversion.
King said she wants the city to look at how other cities preserve rental stock, and for the city to get a legal opinion on whether it can do anything to prevent the rash of condo conversions.
In an interview Friday, Service Alberta Minister Lloyd Snelgrove said rent controls are a no-go.
"It just discourages landlords from building any new (units)," Snelgrove said. "It might seem a good thing for the person in that apartment at the time, but for the 2,000 people that are moving to town next month, there will be no buildings."
Snelgrove said no solutions will be found until Alberta's housing problems are clearly identified. The minister said that will be done through the province's affordable housing task force, set to hold public meetings across the province this month.
kcryderman@theherald.canwest.com

Every Albertan has the right to have a home that is safe, stable, affordable and energy efficient.

The Calgary Housing Action Initiative strongly advocates for the following:

1. 1% of the Provincial government’s budget to be allocated towards housing (Alberta $340 million per year)
• Invested in diverse housing options, including cooperative housing and non-profit mix income models built on community land trusts that are accessible and energy efficient. We need long term intelligent models that will ensure diverse housing options for all.

2. Amending the Municipal Government Act to allow for inclusionary zoning
• Allow cities and towns to allocate sufficient housing for all income levels in all new developments or redevelopments in communities. Ensure that 20% of each new housing development is within the budget of the lowest 20% of incomes (no more than 30% of a household’s income). Alberta needs to create healthy, diverse, inclusive, and walkable communities that are close to work and basic amenities.

3. Renter Protections
• When the vacancy rate drops below 3%:
o Automatic two-year moratorium on conversions of rental properties to condominiums
 Unless developers replace rental units lost due to condominium conversions with new rental properties in the same community at previous rental rates
o Limit annual rent increases to no more than the inflation rate

Calgary Housing Action Initiative
Minutes of General Meeting

Date: December 12, 2006
Time: 7-9pm
Place: Knox United Church

1. Introductions
2. Open forum for raising issues and problem-solving around responses.
A.“Affordable housing” is the wrong term because it has negative connotations. Use “diversity of housing options” instead?
B. Have we done any door knocking to promote the benefits of affordable housing, ask people if they would oppose having affordable housing next door to them or in their neighbourhood? No, we haven’t done this yet. But we are working on ways to do more awareness raising.
C. Have we looked into rent to own options? HSBC Bank may have a program like this, based on shariya law. David will look into this, explore for Alternative Housing working group future presentation.
D. Speculating is causing inflation in housing prices and should not be allowed. It is likely to die down as market cools off and it is no longer as profitable.
E. Millican Ogden community group developed affordable housing for their community. Pauline will dig into her archives and provide us with more information on this. Perhaps we can learn from this experience.
F. We should be involving more people who are homeless in our work. We need to be doing more to build relationships with this community and reduce barriers to involvement in CHAI. Our role is to support citizens in taking action, and letting people know about our activities.
G. Is there a need to raise more awareness about homelessness in Calgary? How can we do this? We could support protests or media campaigns if people who are homeless want to be a part of this. Or we could represent the numbers using objects like boxes. We could create a new red mile. We could do a mural representing the two side of Calgary. We could see if a magazine is interested in doing an article on the two sides of Calgary.
H. Do we want to help in the current clothing drives being done by the shelters? Pauline will post the info about this on our website.
I. It has been shown that if the top 20% of income earners gave 5% of their income through taxes to the bottom 20% of income earners, this would be enough money to lift them out of poverty.
J. We should organize a walk/run to end homelessness and include street theatre.
K. We should create a list of actions on our website for people looking for ideas for what to do about the housing crisis. Jennifer will create a forum on this.
L. We should create a list of actions for CHAI to get involved in, post on website, and vote on them online. Jennifer will create a forum for this. Grant will create a way to vote on this online.
M. We should create a Christmas Wish List with our top 5 wishes if we could have anything we wanted. This can be sent to members, posted on the website, and turned into a press release. It should be humourous. A list was made of possible wishes. AJ will work on this and post to the website for feedback.
N. Next meeting: Tuesday, January 9th, Knox United Church