Advocates Gather at BC Legislature for Housing Justice

200 people gathered at the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia in Victoria on Housing Justice Day, clamouring for affordable housing they no longer expect from our governments, and instead issuing calls for community organising.

The rally was organised by the Housing Justice Project, whose members include housing advocates Nicole Chaland and Bruce Livingstone. It also unveiled a 20 metres long banner by Kwakwa̲ka̲’wakw & Nuu-Cha-Nulth artist Alex Taylor-McCallum reading “Housing is a Human Right.” The artwork was unfinished and damaged by the rain, yet still looked impressive, to the marvel of the attendance.

There were several speakers today to express their exasperation to every level of government’s housing policy fiasco. Multiple were indigenous, including Tiffany Joseph of the W̱SÁNEĆ Leadership Council, and came to highlight the particular plight of peoples who didn’t have a word for homelessness until the European settlers imported the concept with them.

One advocate spoke for the British Columbia/Yukon Association of Drug War Survivors, which fought lengthy legal battles against the city of Kelowna over the latter’s attempts at closing encampments. She urged governments to work with people with lived experience to implement solutions instead of patronising them, arguably the root of every policy derive.

Niki Ottosen of the Backpack Project, for her part, told anecdotes of late homeless advocate Chrissy Brett, known for sprouting tent cities in municipalities left and right as a form of resistance to colonial displacement and the war on the poor.

The recently reformed Victoria Tenants Union took the stage alongside the Nelson Street Tenant Association to call for mobilisation against a government whose housing policy came down to laissez-faire economics until disaster struck, and hasn’t learned anything since. The latter also enjoined the crowd to support its fight against demoviction in Esquimalt by corporate landlords such as Belmont Properties and Intracorp Developments.

The consensus which emerges today is that advocates are done expecting anything from the government, and instead look into community organisation for answers. Nevertheless, the rally organisers have called upon the attendance to reach out to Premier David Eby and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to deliver on their promises to build enough affordable housing to meet demand. Though we may get nothing out of them, they still shouldn’t feel comfortable with business as usual as cynicism toward government builds resistance and sometimes even revolution.

By the way, if you haven’t signed my letter to Victoria city councillors demanding they uphold their legal obligations toward the unhoused residents of this city, please do so. It only takes a click and it annoys the hell out of every council member by spamming their mailboxes. Let’s keep it up!