The new Rental Protection Fund won’t address the issue at the root of B.C.’s rental woes — a severe imbalance between the number of renters and the availability of units to rent — and may actually make things worse.
The Eby government recently launched a $500-million “Rental Protection Fund” to help address affordability woes in British Columbia. The fund, which will offer onetime grants to non-profit housing organizations to buy residential rental buildings listed for sale, is meant to protect existing renters from evictions.
Unsurprisingly, average rents in B.C. were 24 per cent higher than the Canadian average, according to the most recent census. It’s basic economics — when demand outruns supply, prices rise. Consequently, after a non-profit purchases an existing building with money from the government’s new fund, it may not be able to redevelop that building and add more units. This unintended consequence could perversely result in fewer units being built than would be the case absent this latest government intervention.
Of course, people worry about low-income tenants forced to find new housing when rental buildings are sold for redevelopment. While there are some safeguards in place to help displaced tenants , it can be challenging to find another vacant unit.
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