Even though engineer Lisa Brideau is on the path to earning a high income, she is convinced that she doesn’t have a hope of owning a home in Vancouver. Brideau, a master’s student at the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), rents an apartment in the West End. She says it’s not ideal, though she loves the community. What Canadians want, she argued in a report she coauthored for the City of Vancouver this summer, is ground-oriented housing with a sense of place. In other words, the modest dream of a little home, with a little yard, and a neighbourhood dense enough to attract great stores and transit.

As a first-time buyer in this city, she believes she won’t find that—or even a 600-square-foot box in the sky.

“Every time I walk by an ad for new condos, I think ‘Wow, I’m really glad they’re building that for rich people, but what about everyone else?’?” Brideau told the Georgia Straight. “Vancouver is becoming a playground for rich people, and regular people are being pushed out.”

Market forces, the simple supply-and-demand push, have propelled Greater Vancouver housing prices beyond the reach of most middle-income earners (defined by Statistics Canada as $35,000 to $69,900 combined household income).

In 2005, the average price of a house in Greater Vancouver reached $585,000. The required household income to buy it: $132,000 per year, with a 10 percent down payment, according to the mortgage calculators at www.canadianmortgage.com/. That’s more than twice the median household income of Vancouverites, $56,931.

During 2005, average townhouse prices reached $358,000 (monthly income needed: $7,000, or $84,000 per year), and apartments grew to $295,000 ($6,000/$72,000).

In the fall, the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation lightly sounded the alarm, with its publication Housing Market Outlook: “Smaller price increases in 2006 will be the result of declining affordability beginning to erode consumer demand. Condominium apartments, long considered an affordable housing option, will have increased 50 percent in the 2003 to 2006 period.”

For Brideau, who studies urban systems, the solution is clear. “There has to be government control,” she said. “If there isn’t, supply and demand will force the middle people out.”

Until 1993, the federal government intervened in middle-class housing through the National Non-Profit Housing Program, which built co-ops. The government axed it in the early 1990s, and it has not been reinstated. Long-time federal housing advocate and Vancouver East MP Libby Davies told the Straight that Liberal and Conservative federal governments abandoned housing and left it up to the provinces, through bilateral agreements. In B.C., those agreements are channelled through BC Housing, which focuses on senior rather than family units.

Davies said she can’t release the details of the NDP’s platform, but promises that if elected, an NDP federal government will fight for middle-income housing. “The federal government has done virtually nothing, which is why we’re in such dire straits now,” she claimed. “The Conservatives have no housing plan whatsoever. They believe in the market. They think the market will solve it. The Liberals abandoned housing under Paul Martin—they have a terrible track record.”

That track record showed up in Vancouver’s Southeast False Creek plans. Vancouver city council got the blame for changing the makeup of the new housing development near Science World this winter.

Originally, the 16,109 new residents were to be one-third low-income, one-third middle-income, and one-third “market,” or essentially, high-income, reflecting the design of the 1976-built False Creek development, immediately to the west. The NPA axed that middle requirement at the December 20 council meeting, opting instead to potentially build 20 percent social housing and 80 percent market.

However, the blame cannot rest entirely with the city. When the old False Creek was built, the federal government funded the co-ops—where the middle-income earners live. With the federal program gone, the city was left to find that money without Ottawa.

One of the first residents of the False Creek co-ops, John McBride, told the Straight that the city is missing out by repeating the Yaletown formula, instead of funding a co-op structure in Southeast False Creek. “It was a great place to have kids,” he said, “because you know your neighbours, and you feel much more of a sense of safety.”

Delta–Richmond East Conservative MP John Cummins told the Straight that the federal government has a role in ensuring middle-income earners can afford housing. “In the Lower Mainland, if you’re a middle-income earner or just starting out, housing is out of reach,” Cummins said. “The co-op program has done a hell of a good job. It’s providing a viable and attractive alternative for a lot of people. I don’t think…senior governments can sit on the sidelines much longer.”

On the North Shore, Liberal MP Don Bell bought his house for $32,000 in 1969. He told the Straight it’s worth $700,000 today. “It would be a dream now,” he said. “Most people I know are in two-income families. It has unfortunately become a way of life. Daycare is important, and they need that kind of support. They’re working because they have to. I empathize. There are no good solutions. Low income has got to be the focus, though. Those at the low end are really desperate.”

Bell pointed out that the Liberals are in the midst of a major consultation on housing. “I would hold some hope out for it [renewed co-op housing funding] as we pursue the housing framework,” he said. “There’s no question that this is a priority.”

In November 2004, NDP MP Ed Broadbent told the House of Commons, “We are the only one [country] in the G-7 without continuing, coherent, stable funding allocated for affordable housing and that is a national disgrace.”

It even surprised an American UBC student, who came to Canada to study what he calls “workforce housing”. Mark Reismeyer, from Portland, Oregon, said that he was shocked to discover his government does more to support housing than Canada’s does. Yet, both countries face an increasing bulk of families who earn too much to qualify for social housing, but not enough to buy—especially in urban centres.

“This problem is particularly poignant, because we’re talking about the teachers, firefighters, and nurses,” said Reismeyer, a SCARP master’s student. “The people who serve communities, but can’t afford to live there.”

Reismeyer notes that, even though both Republicans and Democrats preach the gospel of home ownership, the middle-income housing crunch hasn’t surfaced in U.S. political debates.

“I wouldn’t say there’s a political consciousness about this; it doesn’t make headlines. But there’s certainly a sense that, after World War I, you could afford to buy a house on one income. There’s a growing sense that’s no longer the case. There’s just a sense that the American Dream is becoming unattainable for a larger and larger proportion of the population.”

Brideau said she intends to continue renting and keep her expectations European: she may rent forever, rather than buy. But she said she hasn’t seen anyone in power standing up for family housing over the relentless building of luxury apartments in Vancouver.

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