Lisa Cameron: Freeze rental payments and ban all evictions now
To expect low-wage earners currently facing income-loss to pay rent is not only unreasonable, but also dangerous, writes Lisa Cameron.
Housing
Media release: Rent freeze and eviction ban, COVID-19 phone-in action is today
Press release: ACORN and allies are ramping up their campaign for a rent freeze and eviction ban during the COVID-19 Epidemic with a Phone-In Action after getting thousands of signatures on their petition.
Media Release: Burrill: No one should be evicted during COVID-19 state of emergency
Media release: At a time when we need to stay home from all but the most essential activities, evictions become a public health issue. During the provincial state of emergency, no tenants should be evicted. You can’t stay home if you don’t have a home to stay in.
Community Services abandons most vulnerable in time of crisis
Today Kelly Regan, Minister of Community Services, joined the daily COVID-19 government press conference to discuss what her department is doing to help income assistance recipients and other low income people. Not very much at all, it turns out.
Judy Haiven: A victory for one! Housing authority finds new place for senior who fled bedbugs-infested apartment
Gary Aitchison has a new bedbug-free place to live! After Judy Haiven and the NS Advocate exposed how a senior was forced to flee his bug-infested apartment all of a sudden the Metropolitan Regional Housing Authority found him a new place. Too bad it took seven years.
No-one is happy with the property tax
Economists Michael Bradfield and James Sawler make the case for doing away with property taxes and replacing it with something more fair to everybody.
Larry Haiven: Eliminating the assessment cap will open the door to speculators and absentee landlords
Thoughtful presentation by Larry Haiven to an all-party committee reviewing a proposal to eliminate capped property assessments in Nova Scotia. “Our fear is that, allowed to run free, tax assessment based on the vagaries of the market could seriously damage a wonderful, diverse and still-affordable neighbourhood,” said Haiven.
Bedbugs drive senior out of his public housing apartment
Judy Haiven writes about a senior citizen who is camping out in a Halifax hotel because his public housing apartment at the Gordon B. Isnor Manor is infested with bedbugs.
Kendall Worth: “When I keep looking for an affordable place to live and not find anything, what can I do?”
Reporter Kendall Worth offers a reminder that high rents and rent increases are forcing poor people to make risky choices that they aren’t really comfortable with. In this case things seem to work out, but that isn’t always the case.
In the midst of a housing crisis it’s business as usual for Housing Nova Scotia
There is a severe housing crisis in Halifax and many other Nova Scotia towns. As in most any crisis, it’s painful for everybody, but the very poor, and especially also the racialized poor, are bearing the brunt. However, when you listen to Housing Nova Scotia senior bureaucrats at yesterday’s Community Services Standing Committee you do not get a sense of urgency.