44 VTU members attended our February 21st general meeting. Here is a summarized version of the minutes.
Item 1 - Territorial Acknowledgement & Community Agreements
Item 2 - Defend Broadway Campaign Update
Item 3 - Special resolution on Municipal Policy Demands for 2022 - Presentation and Discussion
Motion: BE IT RESOLVED THAT the membership of the Vancouver Tenants Union supports confirming that the following policy demands are our top priorities for municipal governments:
- Use municipal powers to implement vacancy control (rent control tied to the unit)
- Use municipal powers to stop renovictions (evictions for renovations and repairs)
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Stop displacement caused by demovictions (evictions for demolition of a suite)
- Tenants have the right to move back into new suite at the same rent
- Landlords top up a tenant’s rent while the new suite is under construction
- Make Tenant Relocation & Protection Policies universal - applicable to all tenancy situations
- Use municipal powers to end “no pets” clauses
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Support the demands of CRAB park residents as stated in their 2020 demands letter:
- building 10,000 units of dignified social housing,
- returning land around CRAB park to the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations and build a healing lodge
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the membership of the Vancouver Tenants Union supports the following municipal policy demands in addition to the above:
- Implement progressive property taxation policies to reduce real estate speculation and fund non-market housing
- Crack down on slumlords with robust enforcement and fines for violations of municipal standards and maintenance bylaws
- End street sweeps of unhoused people's shelters and belongings and instead arrange for adequate housing
- dissolution of the Memorandum of Understanding on Support for Unsheltered Vancouver Residents that enables government sanctioned harassment of unhoused people
- Create a public facing landlord registry, including a requirement to list the historical rents on units
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Build more deeply affordable social housing and co-ops across the city
- Absolutely no more private, for-profit developments on public or city-owned land and no sales of public lands to private entities
- Give municipal government a first right of refusal to buy private rentals and convert them into social housing or co-ops
- create a directly city controlled and transparently administered land trust for social/co-op housing with currently available city-owned land
- Mandate a minimum humane unit size for new developments to account for different stages of life and different family compositions
Motion passes (In favour: 27, abstain: 2, opposed: 0)
Item 4 - Announcements (20 mins)
- Report back on Stipend Policy
- Updates on bylaw changes
- Fairview chapter – chapter launch on March 13th over Zoom from 11:30-2pm. Will send a zoom link for that. If you are interested email: [email protected]
Meeting Adjourned
Live minutes are recorded at each GM and condensed for the website. For more detailed minutes any member may contact us: [email protected]