Issues: Affordable Housing

There are two issues people in Surrey think about when it comes to housing. For most families, affordability is the key. Where can we afford to live? Is our current housing market preventing young families from becoming home-owners? The second issue, unfortunately, is the growing number of homeless in Surrey, particularly in the City Centre and south through to Newton.

Surrey can work with all levels of government to ensure housing is affordable for young people to become homeowners. Surrey's part is to ensure that a variety of housing choices is provided, appropriate for people of all ages, for young families, for new homeowners, etc. In Surrey, I will push for the provincial and federal governments to establish a non-market housing program, similar to the Madrid model. Under this model, governments build non-market housing projects, which they then sell to buyers who qualify for this housing, "at-cost." The buyers, when they wish to sell, must sell back to the government at the price they bought at, plus a minimal price increase for each year that they owned (perhaps at the rate of inflation). The government will then sell the unit back to another buyer who qualifies. The Madrid model works because: 1) it doesn't 'cost' the government anything; 2) there is little incentive for a buyer to try and 'cheat' the system in hopes of making a profit; 3) the price increase of non-market housing occurs at a much slower rate than the market (perhaps 2.5% per year, as opposed to the recent market increases of close to 10% per year). This niche of non-market housing remains affordable to the middle-class over time.

Surrey City Council should be lobbying the provincial government to start investing again in more co-op housing in Surrey. As well, Surrey should, with the rest of Metro Vancouver, be encouraging the use of location-efficient mortgages. This is where people who live in developments in close proximity to rapid transit can qualify for a larger mortgage over the same term; the assumption is these homeowners will not need to incur regular car-related expenses, and therefore qualify to pay as much as $200 more on their monthly mortgage payments than they would be permitted to otherwise.

With regard to homelessness, the city needs to preserve existing rental stock by making it in some cases more difficult for much-needed affordable housing stock to be re-developed for a profit. As well, the City of Surrey can work together with other levels of government to build more social housing in our city. Surrey can help by donating public parcels of land for this type of housing and work with developers to include a percentage of non-market housing stock. The city can also do more to leverage its Housing & Homelessness Fund, putting more money toward solutions to the problem of homelessness, such as assisting local non-profit groups who already do this sort of outreach, to find solutions that work in each neighbourhood. Surrey should also work with other municipalities across the country, and with the federal government to develop a new Affordable Housing strategy that will work in the 21st-century.