Jeremy Klaszus
Calgary-Fort NDP candidate Julie Hrdlicka says housing is the number one issue for people in her riding
NDP Liberals renew calls for rent controls
It’s an increasingly familiar story in Calgary: a single mother gets evicted from her apartment and can’t find another place to live.
Karen Cade and her daughter experienced it firsthand last summer. The rent for Cade’s 900-square-foot apartment went up by $200 to $1140 and shortly afterwards she got the boot. (Between the time of the rent increase and her eviction the provincial Conservatives passed a law limiting landlords to one rent increase per year.) Cade and her daughter are now living with her sister. “I’m a professional and can’t pay the rent” says Cade 50 a crisis counsellor at a local women’s shelter. “I didn’t think I’d be in this position at my age.”
Candidates running in the provincial election are getting an earful from people like Cade about the housing shortage — a situation the UN has called a “national crisis.” “Housing is by far the number one issue in this riding for people” says Julie Hrdlicka the NDP candidate for Calgary-Fort a riding that includes the communities of Forest Lawn Dover and Inglewood. “What we’re hearing is families are being left out in Alberta.” Calgary has the highest rents in the country with an average monthly cost of $1089 for a two-bedroom apartment according a study released by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation in December.
The Conservatives’ response to the housing crisis Hrdlicka says has been “shameful” and “embarrassing.” “They have no interest in the concerns of the working people of this province” she says. “This government does not care.”
Sean Chu the Conservative candidate in Calgary-Buffalo disagrees. He says the Conservative plan to build 11000 affordable housing units in five years will help address the shortage for renters. “The PC party really wants to help people” says Chu who works as a police officer.
Last March a government-appointed task force recommended the province bring in temporary rent controls to protect tenants. However Ed Stelmach’s government rejected the recommendation. Chu says it was the right decision. “If you control everything what are we going to turn into?” he says. “A communist country.” Chu says rent controls would hurt renters because landlords would sell their properties cutting rental supply and pushing people onto the streets. “Stats and reports show over and over that if you leave the market alone it works better” says Chu. “That’s why we are the way we are today in Canada. It works so well.”
Both the Liberals and NDP are renewing their calls for rent controls and a moratorium on condo conversions. “Where I live there’s condos going up like crazy” says Cade. “It’s rather intimidating…. If there are condos going up could they please offer rental properties as well so we have an option?”
The NDP says it would close “the loopholes that allow the conversion of apartments to condominiums” which would help people like Cade find an affordable place to live. “We’ve heard from tenants from one end of the province to the other but nowhere is this issue more severe than in Calgary” says NDP leader Brian Mason adding his party’s rent control plan allows “reasonable” rent increases for landlords while protecting tenants “from being gouged.”
The NDP says it would limit rental increases to the rate of inflation (the Consumer Price Index) plus two per cent — the recommendation made by the province’s task force. However while the task force recommended the rent controls be in place temporarily the NDP wants them in place indefinitely. “I would suggest we need rent controls until rent controls are no longer needed” says Mason.
The Liberals are calling for a temporary 10 per cent cap that would be in place for two years. “What we’re really about is trying to keep roofs over people’s heads as a sort of crisis management situation until we can get the affordable housing crisis under control” says Dave Taylor the Liberal incumbent candidate in Calgary-Currie. (Taylor wrote his party’s policy on affordable housing.) “To stick with [rent controls] forever really does skew the market.” The Liberals say they would create 10000 affordable housing units in the next five years. “Ultimately we have to be creating affordable housing — and we have to be creating it in quantity” says Taylor.
While Mason dismisses the Liberal plan as “completely ineffective” Taylor says it strikes a good balance. “What we’re really trying to do here is not control rents” he says. “We’re really trying to end rent gouging because that’s the big issue…. We’re trying to spread the pain short-term between the tenants and the landlords until you actually solve the problem.” Both parties say they would also create a program for first-time homebuyers.
Shelina Hassanali the NDP candidate in Calgary-Cross and a community crisis counsellor at the Calgary Women’s Emergency Shelter is also concerned about the housing shortage. Hassanali says she’s seen fewer women accessing shelter services in recent months — and she suspects it’s not because domestic violence is on the decrease but “because there is no affordable housing available.” Many women Hassanali says choose to stay with an abusive spouse because they don’t want to risk becoming homeless.
“I’ve had clients that I’ve worked with who managed to find a place to live but the monies they might receive from social services just go to cover their rent” says Hassanali a registered social worker. “And then they have no money for food…. We’re not supporting the people who need our support the most in this society where we’re booming.”
