To the Editor:
The Green Party of Saskatchewan (GPS) is very unhappy that 2013 is quickly drawing to a close on a sour note. The Wall Government is allowing the province's Affordable Housing Crisis to continue escalating. The latest example of an entire apartment building full of renters being evicted in Regina with two months notice is making the crisis even worse. Christmas and Hanukah are just around the corner.
Where are these people and others like them supposed to go? There is almost nowhere for these individuals in Regina to rent from. It's time for the Wall Government to take action to remedy this crisis:
Encourage municipalities to make it easier to zone neighbourhoods for mobile homes and other portable forms of housing,
Give more power to the Office of Residential Tenancies (the Rentalsman) to protect renters from being evicted during winter months,
And if needed, the government itself should build more rental housing units that can be sold to low income individuals at an affordable cost.
The solutions that our party is putting forward may not be perfect, but our ideas beat doing nothing at all, which is exactly what the Saskatchewan Party Government is doing. Hopefully Premier Wall will spread some early Christmas cheer by taking the GPS' recommended actions seriously and end this housing crisis immediately.
Victor Lau, Leader of the GPS, Regina, SK.
