Tenants in Transition

A walk through many neighbourhoods of Halifax Regional Municipality will show construction of housing underway in new multi unit buildings that have capacity for hundreds of people to live. The target residents for this new construction are not likely to be those most in need of adequate shelter. Fixed term leases have become more common and rent increases have not been capped at levels needed to ensure tenants can expect to be able to continue to finance housing which should be a right for all in Canada.

Transition to Adequate Housing

ACORN Canada news and events presents an article by Brendyn Creamer written for The Coast that reports the NSNDP promises to scrap fixed-term leases and lower rent cap if elected.

In a press release on Oct 31, party leader Claudia Chender said if the NDP form the next government, they would ban fixed-term leases. This practice allows landlords to boot tenants after their lease is up and increase the rent of units, effectively bypassing the 5% annual rent cap enacted by premier Tim Houston’s government.

Chender also said she would cut the cap in half, meaning yearly increases to rent would not be more than 2.5% of what tenants are already paying. She says she would do this immediately.

The release notes that rent increased 18% last year on average, and that the typical one-bedroom apartment costs $2,000 per month in Nova Scotia. They also said the vacancy rate is 1%. The CMHC’s 2023 rental market report shows that the vacancy rate in Halifax last year was 1%, and noted that the average two-bedroom apartment rent is $1,628—up from 11% the previous year, although other sources claim that it has only become worse in 2024. (ACORN Canada, n.d.)

Social Housing & Human Rights, a coalition of organizations and individuals advocating for more federal investment in social housing in Canada, reports that more than 2.68 million Canadians are in core housing need – unable to find a home that meets the acceptable housing standards of adequacy, suitability and affordability.

Adequate

Housing is considered adequate if it is not in need of major repairs.

Suitable

Housing is considered suitable if there are enough bedrooms for the size and make-up of the resident household.

Affordable

Housing is considered affordable if it costs less than 30% of before-tax household income.

Some groups are harder hit than others. Women-led single parent households, racialized and newcomer families, people with disabilities, and First Nations, Metis, and Inuit households are over-represented in core housing need. (Social Housing and Human Rights, n.d.)

Andrew Lam  of CBC News reveals that Killam, one of Canada’s largest residential landlords, reports 'largest rental gains' on new leases in the company's history in the most recent update. Rents increased the most on new leases in Halifax, Saint John and Moncton.

Like other landlords, Killam boosts rents to the market rate when new tenants sign a lease, pushing the reported average rent increase above Nova Scotia's five per cent cap. The cap only applies to lease renewals.

Killam's financial results are an example of the overall trends we've been seeing in recent years in rental markets where there's been inadequate housing supply, said Neil Lovitt, a vice-president with Turner Drake, a real estate consulting company.

"That creates an opportunity for for-profit housing providers to raise rents to market prices when they have an opportunity to do so," Lovitt said. "They're … doing what any market participant really can do." (Lam, n.d.)

Andrew Lam of  CBC News reports that Killam Apartment REIT, based in Halifax, is one of Canada’s largest residential landlords, owning, operating, managing and developing a diverse portfolio of apartments, manufactured homes and seasonal properties.

The Killiamreit website presents information about their Affordable Housing.

We’re committed to providing clean, safe, accessible housing for everyone, regardless of age, background or income level. That’s why Killam partners with many non-profit housing and government agencies to offer over 800 subsidized units in our communities. (Killam Apartment REIT, n.d.)

Subsidized units in Nova Scotia may be a good long term solution to our housing needs. The work to date to provide “pallet homes” has begun a transition from living rough and tent communities to more adequate housing.

Pallet Home Community

Michael Tutton of the Canadian Press reports for CBC News on a $630,000 installation in Lower Sackville that includes 19 sleeping units, separate washrooms and a laundry facility. Jim Gunn, a board member of Beacon House Shelter, describes the boxy 70-square-foot Pallet shelters — carrying the name of the U.S. company that makes them — as a temporary solution.

"Our greatest concern is that these should never become and be seen as permanent, but there's no affordable housing," the retired educator said during a recent tour of the property in Lower Sackville, about three weeks after it opened. "These shelters will stay here until we find someplace else people can go." (Tutton, 2024)

Cassidy McMackon, of the Canadian Press, writing for Global News reports that a village of tiny homes is set to open next month in a Halifax suburb, the latest project by the provincial government to address homelessness.

A Village of Tiny Homes

Located in Lower Sackville, N.S., the tiny home community will house up to 34 people when the first 26 units open Nov. 4.

Another 35 people are scheduled to move in when construction on another 29 units should be complete in December, under a partnership between the province, the Halifax Regional Municipality, United Way Halifax, The Shaw Group and Dexter Construction.

The province invested $9.4 million to build the village and will contribute $935,000 annually for operating costs.

Residents have been chosen from a list of people experiencing homelessness maintained by the Affordable Housing Association of Nova Scotia, the community entity of the federal Reaching Home program for Halifax and rural Nova Scotia. The main objective of Reaching Home is to streamline access to housing and supports for people who are experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness, by coordinating local services to achieve community-wide outcomes using real-time data. 

They will pay rent that is tied to their income for a unit that is fully furnished with a private bathroom, shower and a kitchen equipped with a cooktop, small fridge and microwave. (McMackon, 2024)

The work to address homelessness in Nova Scotia is not complete.

The Right to Adequate Housing

The right to housing is honoured when people can transition from “pallet homes” and a Tiny home village to subsidized accommodation like that just across Cobequid Road in a modern apartment building.

Transition from “pallet homes” and a Tiny home village to adequate accomodation

References

ACORN Canada. (n.d.). The Coast: NSNDP promises to scrap fixed-term leases and lower rent cap if elected. ACORN Canada News and Events. https://acorncanada.org/news/the-coast-nsndp-promises-to-scrap-fixed-term-leases-and-lower-rent-cap-if-elected/ 

Killam Apartment REIT. (n.d.). KIlliam's Approach. Home | killam. Retrieved November 26, 2024, from https://killamreit.com/killams-approach 

Lam, A. (n.d.). Killam reports 'largest rental gains' on new leases in company's history in most recent update. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/killam-reit-2024-q3-financial-results-1.7390918?cmp=rss 

McMackon, C. (2024, October 24). Homelessness: Tiny home village to open next week in Halifax suburb - Halifax | Globalnews.ca. Global News. Retrieved November 26, 2024, from https://globalnews.ca/news/10828781/tiny-home-village-halifax-suburb/ 

Social Housing and Human Rights. (n.d.). Housing is a human right. https://www.moresocialhousing.ca/ 

Tutton, M. (2024, March 18). Tiny shelter community in Halifax suburb up and running, as province seeks new sites. CBC. Retrieved November 26, 2024, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/pallet-shelters-halifax-nova-scotia-installed-1.7147652 

Two ways of hope in climate change

Don Pittis of CBC News reports that Mark Jaccard, energy economist and adviser to world leaders, known in global climate circles as a leading architect of British Columbia's successful climate struggle, wants to tell the world there is hope.

Two effective political actions

He admits that in fossil fuel-producing areas of the world like Australia and Alberta, there are many who will remain impossible to sway.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."1

While business can perform a valuable role, with fossil fuels so cheap and easy to use, the economic pressure to act must come from government regulation. Without government rules, the free market would simply continue to use the atmosphere as a free garbage dump for carbon.

That's why the first step of Jaccard's strategy is to put the immediate effort on two areas that mostly affect a country's domestic markets.

Those two areas, energy production and transport — essentially power plants and cars and trucks — are responsible for the majority of most countries' greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, that transition will lay foundations that will make later industrial decarbonization easier.

Jaccard recommends… donating… to a pro-climate group that can identify and support climate-sincere politicians and point a finger at the majority of those who are "faking it."

Because in the long run, getting carbon out of world's atmosphere cannot be completed by a few individuals doing good, it must instead be a project of people using politics to transform regional and national rules about carbon. Jaccard says those regions and countries will then combine to put carbon tariffs on the world's free riders, not a project for 2020.1

 1 (2019, December 30). What you can do in 2020 to keep the world from ... - CBC.ca. Retrieved December 30, 2019, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/climate-change-failure-1.5400663

Alberta Bitumen and Cars

Sandra Laville reports that global carmakers are among the leading opponents of action on the climate crisis.

A question of balance for the planet

This is according to an exclusive analysis of the way major corporations frustrate or undermine initiatives to cut greenhouse gases. The research, for the Guardian, revealed that since 2015, Fiat Chrysler, Ford, Daimler, BMW, Toyota and General Motors have been among the strongest opponents of regulations to help countries meet the 1.5C warming limit in the Paris agreement. The car industry in the US and Europe has attempted to block, delay and frustrate initiatives to regulate and reduce emissions from the transport sector and slow the move to electric vehicles, the report says.

Edward Collins, author of The Carbon Policy Footprint, said: “Corporations have a profound impact on the climate change agenda not only through physical emissions but through influencing of the climate change policy agendas being introduced by governments around the world.
“The sector has dug in hard to dampen rising vehicle emissions and fuel economy standards. Through their lobbying, auto companies have delayed the transition of a sector that sucks up a huge proportion of oil demand globally...”
Julia Poliscanova, the clean vehicles director for the Transport & Environment NGO, said the automotive industry was seeking to eke out the last profits of the traditional engine by frustrating emissions reduction targets and questioning every aspect of electric technology, from expressing apparent concerns about the affordability for consumers to querying if the infrastructure will be in place in time.
“The car industry has always maximised its profits from its existing models and products for as long as is possible to make their money and delay and work around the regulations,” she said.
“They have known for years – since 2013 – the standards coming in on emissions in 2021. They have had years to prepare but they didn’t. Instead they pushed their SUV market, maximised its sales reach to make profits from these high-polluting, high-margin vehicles for as long as possible and now they are scrambling to comply, claiming how difficult it is to meet the targets, but they only have themselves to blame.”1

Barry Saxifrage reports that Canadians and Americans currently drive the world's most climate polluting cars and trucks.

Canadian car, trucks, and GHG

On average they emit more than 60 tonnes of climate pollution (tCO2) each over their lifespan. To meet our Paris Climate Agreement goals, all our cars and trucks will need to quickly transition to nearly zero-emissions.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/09/04/analysis/canadian-cars-are-worlds-dirtiest-ev-age-essential 

If you look back at that chart, (MIT did the math and created an interactive chart on their CarbonCounter.com website.) you'll see that only electric vehicles are clean enough to meet future climate targets. And only then if they are also fuelled with fairly clean electricity.
I customized that chart to use the emissions-intensity of the super-clean electricity that most Canadians have access to: 20 gCO2 per kilowatt-hour (kWh). With electricity that clean, EVs meet future climate targets.
But if the electricity they use is too dirty, then even the cleanest cars no longer meet even the 2040 targets. This is the case with the current electricity supply in Alberta, Saskatchewan and many U.S. coal-burning states.
So the climate task ahead is two pronged. First, we need to stop buying new vehicles that burn gasoline. All new vehicles need to be able to run on zero-emissions energy. The cleanest option available today is a BEV.
Second, we need to clean up the electricity supply in regions where it is still too climate polluting. Let's take a quick look at each of these in turn.2 

Jason Markusoff reports that three of Canada’s oil sands giants ran full-page ads in newspapers across the country that made a bold claim that some of their operations are producing oil “with a smaller greenhouse impact than the oil average.” What’s more, the ad suggested, shuttering the oil sands could result in higher carbon fuels replacing their products. Trouble is, a close look at the leading comparisons of the world’s crude oil sources, assembled by governments, academics and private-sector analysts, shows that, overall, producing a barrel of crude from oil sands still emits more greenhouse gas than the average of all sources. The best or newest oil sands developments, whose emissions are below the mean, remain exceptions. “You have a lot of amazing trees here. But it is not the forest,” says Benjamin Israel, senior analyst at the Pembina Institute, a clean energy think tank.

Industry leaders say they’ll continue to pursue ways to drive down the oil sands’ per-barrel emissions (also known as their carbon intensity) with a variety of promising innovations and huge sums invested in further research.3 

Oil that can be produced cheaply with low emissions can become more highly sought after. The oil sands have long struggled on both those scores. The energy source fueling the BEV’s will need to produce much less GHG emissions than the bitumen from the oil sands.

References

1	(2019, October 14). Exclusive: Carmakers among key opponents of climate action .... Retrieved October 18, 2019, from https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/10/14/news/exclusive-carmakers-among-key-opponents-climate-action
2	(2019, September 4). Canadian cars are the world's dirtiest | National Observer. Retrieved October 18, 2019, from https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/09/04/analysis/canadian-cars-are-worlds-dirtiest-ev-age-essential
3	(2019, October 16). Scrubbing the oil sands' record - Macleans.ca. Retrieved October 18, 2019, from https://www.macleans.ca/economy/scrubbing-the-oil-sands-record/