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@sand @tezoatlipoca @RickiTarr I also live in Canada. Nearly every person I know is one lost paycheque away from homelessness, I wait years for doctor’s appointments and if we ever lose our rental we will no longer be able to afford rent because it’s now literally more than a mortgage on a home would be. A small trip to the grocery store for like milk and eggs is never less than $100 and will be $2 more per product in a month. It’s so depressing that we’ve started looking at emigration. This is not a vote against public healthcare though. Canada’s issue is top heavy mismanagement and terrible gate keeping. We don’t even have walk in clinics where I am any more.

@RickiTarr @robotdiver @sand @tezoatlipoca It's not unregulated greed, it's greedy regulation. The problem is that we are not building enough housing, because regulations prohibit it (mostly zoning in North America).
In 30 years, Tokyo has gone from the most expensive megalopolis on earth to the most affordable with one simple trick - allowing townhouses, apartment buildings and condos pretty much everywhere.

@CurtAdams @RickiTarr @sand @tezoatlipoca Where I am in Canada I’d have to disagree. There are thousands of condos being built which sit empty as investments or are up for rent at around $3000/month. Canada has allowed microinvesting (much like Bezos is now doing with Amazon) in real estate where I live which means any offer on a home is usually countered with a higher corporate offer and the house is bought by a rental firm as investment income. Wages here have barely changed since the 1990s but average rent for a basement suite is $2000/month. Most people I know work 2 to 3 jobs just to afford basic survival. No building permits on earth will fix that.

@robotdiver @CurtAdams @RickiTarr @sand My GF works in the industry - its not that developers/builders don't want to build affordable housing, they'd love to!. Problem is they're traded companies, they have a fiduciary responsibility to make money. And its the governments (at all levels) which aren't kicking it in. Meanwhile investors and REITs are paying them money to build McCondos.
AND all of the government supports that USED to be in place have been abandoned, ignored or dismantled.

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@robotdiver @CurtAdams @RickiTarr @sand I really can't say it any better than NDP MP Daniel Blaickie, take your pick of those videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnsdoqzVpAw

Having drinks with a builder: *I can totally build an apartment bld of 2-3 BR apartments that with income geared rents would pay for itselfs in 15 yrs, problem is noone will pay me to do it. City can't afford it, province is in the pocket of McMansion developers and its outside the wheelhouse of the feds.*

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@tezoatlipoca @robotdiver @CurtAdams @sand People are terrified of affordable housing, it's so much wtf

@RickiTarr @robotdiver @CurtAdams @sand People being afraid of affordable housing? Yes, that is totally WTF.

@tezoatlipoca @RickiTarr @robotdiver @CurtAdams @sand Also Canadian, (south of Toronto) and my husband and I have discussed this topic a few times. A major issue is the Boomer's being promised their houses would be their retirement, so they want the property values to go up and new construction would cause it to go down. It's political poison to advocate for affordable housing because the largest voter base is home owners.

@richardsonstep @tezoatlipoca @RickiTarr @robotdiver @CurtAdams

This I agree with. Housing prices won't come down. Now Builders are making smaller units to satisfy affordability issues. Instead of 900 sqft for a 1-bed unit, it's now 500sqft. Similar to other big cities.

Either that or our employers catch up with inflation and pay us more LOL *chokes*

@Burn_this_ @tezoatlipoca @robotdiver @CurtAdams @sand Regular people?

@tezoatlipoca @CurtAdams @RickiTarr @sand Where I live that has been manipulated heavily with developers either “accidentally forgetting” after getting their permits and then paying fines or charging rent far beyond average income for “affordable” units.

@sand @RickiTarr @robotdiver @tezoatlipoca Housing construction has become so slow people have a very distorted image of how much we need. I'm not aware of any place in the US building enough. In San Francisco, people complain endlessly about "too much construction" - but it's still much slower than US population growth, never mind the enormous amount needed to backfill for 40 years of too little construction.