#empty homes

Gross Nicole Dollanganger

Found this snip of a thread on twitter about overpopulation being a racist, classist myth and thought I'd share with the class.

I think a lot of us have often failed to piece together that the concept of overpopulation doesn't make sense when you also consider how many homes are left empty, how much food goes to waste, and how many other resources are hoarded by the top in order to keep it all this way.

We learn about about overpopulation, and that people are either crammed into cheap housing or are homeless, and that people are also starving because there's just not enough resources to go around. Then we learn about corporate food waste and how many homes are left empty due to greed of banks and we get angry because, how dare they?! When there are homeless and starving people!?

But not everyone puts them together and says, "Wait... both don't makes sense together..." You can't have both too many people, and so much leftover food/shelter you have to throw it away.

We do have enough. We have more than enough.

But the people in charge would rather waste it than distribute it evenly because a populous is more willing to be deal with the exploitative practices of the rich when they believe things are scarce and the it's the only way to survive.

swallow all my feeling when every time you really hurt me always try to fix something only to make you happy

you assume you’re my benefactor never know the pressure you give you deem me as the sinner never know the wounds you give 

I won't bear your hurt anymore today, I’ll break this cage and don't fear if losing you or not cause I know you only love your own

In an effort to curb the much talked-about and much debated empty home situation in Vancouver (supposedly the number is ~20k vacant homes), the city, as many of you know, implemented an Empty Homes Tax.

To enforce this, the City of Vancouver now requires that every year, every owner of residential property must file a status declaration. If you don’t file this by the deadline, the property is automatically deemed vacant and the tax (1% of assessed taxable value) and a penalty ($250) are applied.

Last month, 11 days before the 2017 deadline, the city published the below heat map showing the concentration of Vancouver property owners who hadn’t yet made their declaration. There were just under 4,000 undeclared properties.