First Person: When it comes to housing on P.E.I., it's about people (with money)

This First Person article was written by Connor Kelly, the Tenant Network Coordinator with the P.E.I. Fight for Affordable Housing and Cooper Institute. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ.

I don't want to waste words nitpicking over the provincial government's changes to the Affordable Housing Development Program.

All I'll say on the topic is that shrinking homes without lowering rents is just a way to maintain profits for developers now that material costs are so high. Beyond that, the AHDP is overall an ineffective program that completely misses the source of the problem. It's like trying to trim the leaves of a tree with rotten roots.

I want to focus on why all these recent government announcements — federal and provincial — have been coming up short and why they always will be, unless you organize with your neighbours to do something about it. 

The changes to the AHDP are tone-deaf and useless, like all other government housing announcements, because they aren't interested in finding effective solutions.

• If you'd like to write a First Person piece for CBC P.E.I., submit your pitch to pitchpei@cbc.ca

It's not a crisis, it's a strong market

These governments don't want to solve the housing crisis because, to them, everything is working well. The housing crisis isn't a crisis — it's a strong market. Every line is going up. Everyone they care about is raking in cash. The only protests against them are feeble efforts like this article, frictionless digital screaming that applies no pressure and carries no weight.

The federal and provincial governments consider profit to be a more important right than shelter. In the provincial Rental of Residential Properties Act, landlords are guaranteed the right to a reasonable return on investment. The act has nothing guaranteeing people access to reasonable housing. Providing such a right goes against both governments' interests.

The core cause of the crisis

When I say interests, I don't mean it in some vague moral sense.

These governments aren't full of cruel or mean individuals — most of them are probably pretty nice. But they are, or are surrounded by, people who make money by owning things rather than by doing work. You know who I mean — landlords, developers, bosses. These people live off profit, and, because of that, they are deeply invested in maintaining the rules of society that protect their access to that profit.

One class of people (owners) doing nothing are living wealthy lives off the backs of the class of people doing everything (workers).— Connor Kelly

Profit is the tree's rotten root and the core cause of the housing crisis.

To live off profit is to live off exploitation — the exploitation of tenants and workers who that profit is taken from. We make the products and provide the services that create profit in the workplace, while also paying the rents that cover the mortgages and create profit in the buildings. Bosses don't, and landlords don't, but it's their pockets that profit goes into.

This dynamic must be clearly stated. One class of people (owners) doing nothing are living wealthy lives off the backs of the class of people doing everything (workers). That's a sweet deal to the first group, so of course they've organized their power into chambers of commerce, business advocacy groups, and even a landlord's union to ensure the way of things will never change.

You are not alone

Things can change, though.

Remember that the government wants private profits to grow and the line to go up, and that all profits come from people like you. That means they can be pressured by control of profit, and that you have the most direct access to that lever. On your own you don't control much, but all it takes to build a lever big enough to move the province is to bring more workers and tenants together. Then the matter becomes simple: make a clear demand for change, and back it up by pulling the lever and stopping the profits.

We've done it before.

In the 1800s tenant-farmers facing a similar situation as we face now won control of their homes from absentee landlords through rent strikes and co-ordinated pressure on the provincial government, landlords, police, and military. In the 1940s, organized public pressure from across Canada created Wartime Housing Limited, a publicly owned construction company that built public housing for veterans after the Second World War. In the 1970s, Island tenants organized again to pressure the government into legislating rent control.

All it takes to start is to be reminded that you are not alone, that you deserve better, and that when you and your neighbours come together, you can win.— Connor Kelly

Organizing is what wins effective solutions to our problems, not waiting on our governments to finally do something decent. Landlords and bosses know this, and do their best to disorganize people every day by dividing us across gender, race, sexuality, nationality — anything that gets you complaining about your neighbours and coworkers rather than the real material problems. 

If you start organizing, then you should expect opposition from those in power. But only because the powerful get desperate when people like you and me remember that their power comes from us letting them have it.

There is no secret formula to organizing. The methods are time-tested and easy to learn. All it takes to start is to be reminded that you are not alone, that you deserve better, and that when you and your neighbours come together, you can win.

If you want to start organizing to build the power needed to solve the housing crisis, you can reach out at housingpei@gmail.com or 1-877-894-4573.