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How many lonely homes are
in your neighbourhood?

> New website points out empty houses across Metro Vancouver

Aaron Guillen
Staff Reporter

 

Wwe the past year, the housing

crisis has plagued homeowners
across the Metro Vancouver region due
to the growth of the housing market
bubble and its overall unpredictability. As
prices for single-family homes continue
to rise, the number of new residents
purchasing property begins to dwindle
and spread farther from the regions’ core
in the hopes of more affordable spaces.
A Coquitlam woman who wants to get
to the bottom of the inflating housing
market issue thinks she may have found
one of the key players in what she calls
“lonely homes.”

“The idea began to build slowly
starting in January 2016 when there was
a significant amount of media attention
focused on the lack of rental housing in
the Lower Mainland. At the time there
were a number of news stories about
the challenges of finding affordable
homes for refugees and the number
of renovictions in some areas of the
region,” shared Christine Boehringer on
her website, lonelyhomes.ca. “We saw a
number of what appeared to be empty
homes and wondered how common they
are. We wrote down some addresses and

Whi

AN TTL NN

checked on them regularly to see if they
were empty over a period of time and
talked about it with a few friends. Our
discussion evolved into all of the ways
these empty homes affect us.”

Boehringer wrote that the website is
a way to spread awareness about lonely
homes as a growing issue that is affecting
communities at large. She hopes to open
the discussion as to why there are an
increasing number of empty homes and
what measures could be taken to adjust
certain housing policies.

Currently, the website has racked
up 299 lonely homes—271 of them being
single-family individual houses. Notably,
the homes are self-reported.

Coquitlam City Councillor Craig
Hodge, who is wary of the website,
commented to CBC about his concerns,
stating that having residents reporting
street to street isn’t the way he wants
to gather information on homes. His
argument stands on the fact that it isn’t
the way he wants to build a community
“because it has the potential to cause

  

Image via cleveland.com

friction.” In fact, he raised the perspective
for the rights of private ownership,
suggesting that they should “use their
property as they please.”

“There have been a lot of news stories
about real estate in the Lower Mainland
and lots of data including estimates of
empty homes from older census data
and other sources,” shares Boehringer
on her website. “Estimates from 10,800
to 58,000 empty homes in the Lower
Mainland have been generated from
different sources. These are shocking
numbers, the equivalent of small cities.
The issue of empty homes, their impact
on communities and the environment,
crime, and homelessness, and even why
they are empty, hasn’t generated a lot of
discussion and public input.”

Ideally, Boehringer hopes to present
the findings of her website to local
government by March to see the release
of lonely homes into the housing market.
Recently, the city introduced an Empty
Homes Tax in which owners must pay a
one per cent tax on the current property
value of their homes if unoccupied after
six months.

“Homes shouldn’t be commodities,”
Boehringer said on the website. “They
should be available for people to live in
and raise their families.”

Seminary presents talk on water protection

> Indigenous water quality at the forefront

Nathalie Bouchard
The Cord

 

n January 16, Waterloo Lutheran

Seminary presented a talk
called Protecting Water Through
Prayer and Resistance: Witness
from Standing Rock and Line g.

There were two featured speakers.
The first was Myeengun Henry, Elder
and band councillor for the Chippewas of
the Thames First Nation and Aboriginal
services manager at Conestoga College.

The other speaker was
Bishop Mark MacDonald, national
Indigenous Anglican Bishop with
the Anglican Church of Canada.

Both speakers shared their
experience with protest and
resistance of Indigenous issues.

“One of the visions of the Seminary,
the public seminary, is to bring public
issues and try to bring to bear what
kind of insights faith and religious
life might help in terms of people like
Bishop MacDonald and Elder Myeegun
to help us better understand how we can
participate [and] take part in making
the world a better place,” said Allen G.

 

Myeengun Henry(l) and Mark MacDonald(r)

  

 

Jorgenson, organizer of Protecting Water
Through Prayer and Resistance, and
assistant dean and professor of systematic
theology at Wilfrid Laurier University.
Jorgenson explained that the use
of the Seminary is to provide a space
for all to receive resources about
important social and environmental
topics. The Seminary has done significant
work to raise awareness of issues
such as Standing Rock and Line g.
As well, they have been following
recommendations from The Truth
and Reconciliation Commission.
“We have been attentive on

some of the calls for action, which

is one of the things The Truth and

Reconciliation Commission is to engage

in these issues. We've been doing it

for a quite a while,” Jorgenson said.
“We want to continue to look at

what’s on the table and what are the

issues that are most pressing, and how

we can help people of faith and in

the community to find ways into the

questions and into the calls for action.”
The talk with Bishop MacDonald

and Henry stressed the importance

of consent when it comes to issues

surrounding Indigenous land.

“The heart of the issue wasn’t
really altogether the oil, in that sense.
People misunderstand that. I know I’ve
heard from the interviews from people
at Standing Rock saying we are not
actually against the pipeline, we are
against that they were going to build the
pipeline without asking us and we think
it’s dangerous,” explained Jorgenson.

“The goal of the event was to provide
an occasion for people of faith and no
faith who are interested in learning from
our Indigenous neighbours and how
they can be involved and they have an
occasion to do that,” said Jorgenson.

For those who missed the event
at the Seminary, Jorgenson touched
on the importance of staying educated
about important issues that affect our
society and Indigenous community.

“Myeengun Henry brought up
the issue that is not just an issue of
Standing Rock, but this is an issue in
our own backyard,” Jorgenson said.

“One of the ways you could be
involved is through learning something
[...] Raising awareness is part of social
justice. For people of faith there’s a sense
of responsibility to care for the world
and just get people aware of issues.”