What are you voting for?

Yesterday, one block north of
the downtown Police Station

The writ dropped today, and Albertans are facing another election. I'm not going to get into partisan politics here, but I do want to bring my readers' attention to a critical issue to consider when voting.

Or maybe you've already noticed there's a housing emergency going on. If you spend any time in downtown Edmonton, or walk our river valleys at all, you'll know that our homeless population has been growing.

And I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with inner city friends about landlords jacking up their rents because their buildings need a lot of work -- and the work doesn't get done.

What you might not know is that, up until about 30 years ago, the provincial government did an excellent job creating good, affordable housing so that people didn't have to live outside or in tumble-down tenements. 

Unfortunately, our politicians' priorities shifted, and public money hasn't been spent on affordable housing since the late 80s. In fact, some social housing has been sold off to private interests who don't take care of it. As a result, affordable housing is scarce, and suddenly, you don't have to watch the news to see the resultant increase in community safety concerns or physical and mental health issues in many of our neighbourhoods across the province!

What is someone like Yolande supposed to do? She's a young mom with two school-aged kids, and she's fled a situation of domestic violence. Her little family is now safe in a small apartment, but her rent costs more than half her wages, so she falls short of money for food, utilities and other family expenses every month. She called our local conference of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul (SSVP) for help, but if she had affordable housing, she wouldn't be scrambling to pay her bills and feed her kids all the time.

Yolande’s family is only one of an estimated 35,000 households in Edmonton alone who are in core housing need, meaning that they are paying more than 30% of their incomes to rent their homes, many of which are in poor condition, or do not meet their space or accessibility needs.  And volunteers with SSVP and other agencies meet many seniors and people with long-term illness or disabilities who are in that same boat. 

The City of Edmonton estimates that core housing need will rise to 50,000 households by 2030 unless our provincial government returns to building affordable housing the way it used to, up until the 1980’s.

This is a housing emergency! And it's time to do something about it! 

The election will happen on May 29th. I usually don't know what to say to the electoral candidates who come to my door. But for the past couple of weeks, I've been sharing 3 questions that anyone can ask our wanna-be-politicians:

1.   Too many Albertans struggle to feed their families each month because their rent costs more than 30% of their income. How will you address the affordable housing crisis?

2.   The Alberta Government has not made significant investments in affordable housing in the last 30 years. An estimated investment of $600 million per year for the next 10 years is needed simply to catch up with present needs. Will you support this? Why or why not?

(Maria's note: $600 billion is a drop in the budget bucket of a province that had a $12.3 billion surplus in 2022 alone. For more information on where I got this estimate, see www.ecohh.ca)

3.   Appropriate housing is a necessary solution for homelessness. How will you support this goal? 

If enough of us ask candidates these kinds of questions, leaders are more likely to take notice of the public's concern, and hopefully the housing crisis can be averted. Every question on the doorstep has an impact. Believe it!

So copy, paste, and keep these questions at your door for when electoral candidates come to visit. We can stand up for those in need before the housing emergency gets even worse. 

It's worth asking a few questions, no question!

We'll be fine

Call me an optimist. I won't argue. It's much better than all the doom and gloom I'm finding on the internet today. Sure, things didn't turn out the way a lot of people (including me) expected or hoped. So now it seems there's a lot of depression, fear or anger taking the wheel because it's too easy to imagine worst case scenarios. The building of walls. The decimation of our climate. The proliferation of nuclear arms. In other words, the end of our world as we know it.

But who is really in charge? The spirit of the world's people. And no matter how decisive an election victory, it's the will of the people that leaders must obey, or they find themselves thrown over in a hurry. The non-violent power of the people is incredibly strong. Remember...

- the suffragettes who got women the vote?
- The Resistance in World War II?
- Ghandi's work for the independence of India?
- Rosa Parks and the March on Washington?
- The nuclear disarmament movements of the 80s?
- "People Power" in the Philippines taking down Ferdinand Marcos' dictatorship?
- The Polish Solidarity movement?
- Nelson Mandela and the end of Apartheid?
- The dismantling of the Berlin Wall?
- The Occupy Movement?
- Idle no more?
- The Paris Climate agreements?
- Click here to see where I found most of these great events and even more.

We human beings are a work in progress, we are more than our elected leaders, and we are the ones who call them to be better than they even know they can be. And, bottom line, every single one of us, leaders included, are brothers and sisters, beloved children of God, so dissing one another is never helpful. Instead, we need to love one another, to stand up for each other, and to remember that it's not "us against them."

It's only ever us.