(The following article is from the October 1-15, 2007 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St. Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

Alberta Communists are demanding action on the provincial housing crisis, including government funding for a major program of publicly built and owned housing to ease the shortage and to keep rents down for working people.

     "Workers pay the price when the economy stalls, but they also pay the price when the economy is booming," says a recent statement from the Edmonton Club of the Communist Party. "Edmontonians are facing a crisis of housing, where thousands are forced into sub-standard or overpriced housing or have none at all. Tent cities have become permanent. Renters face impossible rent increases and the fear that their homes may be converted to high-price condos.  Housing prices are beyond the reach of many. Once again, as in previous oil booms, corporations can make record profits, but neither royalties nor social services keep pace.

     "It is almost beyond belief that in the greatest oil boom ever experienced in Alberta, the provincial government can be so feeble in increasing royalty payments and so lax in providing the social services that are needed, including publicly owned and built housing to ease the shortage and keep rents from sky-rocketing. It is no surprise that workers would flock to Alberta for jobs. It is no surprise that Edmonton would receive a large part of this influx, and it is certainly no surprise that housing would be needed. What were they waiting for?  

     "We see the same pattern that the provincial Tories have followed for decades - reducing royalties, allowing multi-national corporations to maximize profit with no thought for environmental or social consequences, cutting social services, and remaining totally inactive in all the productive sectors of the economy, limiting their subsidies to such activities as horse racing. The inaction on housing is part of the same pattern that sees increases in class sizes in public schools and a continuing shortage of staff in hospitals in the midst of unfathomable wealth being created. And the stinginess of funding for mental health services and below poverty-level AISH payments worsen the problem of homelessness for hundreds of Edmontonians whose struggle for housing is complicated by health issues. 

     "At the same time, the federal Tories under Harper spend billions on armaments and nothing on federal housing.

     "By fighting for better housing, working people are standing up and demanding a share in their own economy, built by their labour. It's past time for the federal and provincial governments to listen.

     We need: higher royalties; better funding for social services: a major program of publicly owned and built housing; rent controls; a moratorium on conversion of rentals to condominiums; implement the National Housing and Homelessness Coalition `one percent solution' (1% of federal budget); restore federal support for new housing cooperatives; long term programs of public land-banking to provide stability of prices and rational land-use; public ownership of energy resource development so that it can be planned to avoid booms and busts, so that profits are publicly owned and controlled, and so that the priority is meeting the needs of working people. 

     (For more information, see www.communistparty-alberta.ca, or call 780-465-7893.)