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BIGGER THAN ME PODCAST
191. Ravi Kahlon: What is Being Done About the Housing Crisis?
Is the BC NDP Solving the Housing Crisis? British Columbia's Minister of Housing, Ravi Kahlon, sits down with Aaron Pete to discuss the housing crisis, new legislation, Indigenous housing, US tariffs, and municipal challenges.
Welcome back to another episode of the Bigger Than Me podcast. Here is your host, aaron Peet. What is being done about the housing crisis? Is the provincial government doing enough to respond to the needs of British Columbians, or could more be done? Today I'm speaking with the Minister of Housing about what's being done to address the housing crisis, what could be done better and what BC's response to the tariffs will be. My guest today is Ravi Kallon. Minister Ravi Kallon, it is an honour to have you on the show. Would you mind first briefly introducing yourself?
Ravi Kahlon:Yeah, aaron, thanks for having me. My name is Ravi Kallon. I'm BC's Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs. I'm chairing the committee that's taking on the Trump administration's tariffs. I've been elected for seven years MLA for North Delta. Family guy got a kid, lovely family and born and raised in Victoria. So hopefully that covers all the angles for my intro.
Aaron Pete:Would you mind first briefly introducing yourself? I find it really important to humanize the individuals doing this work. Often politics can be divisive and I think it's helpful to get an understanding of who you are on the personal side first.
Ravi Kahlon:Yeah, no, I appreciate that. Yeah, no. Well, I'm born and raised in Victoria. I spent about four years in India as a little kid because my dad actually was working in the mills and he got laid off and family couldn't afford to keep my sister and I here. You know it's hard for new immigrants. So I spent four years in India, came back, you know, I was fortunate enough to represent Canada at a couple Olympics in field hockey, and so that took me to the lower mainland and of course, north Delta became my home. And then the silly thing of politics popped up in my life. And next thing, you know, I'm elected official and put into these tasks. So it's been a real whirlwind. But you know, this is one of the most fulfilling careers that I've ever had in my life.
Aaron Pete:Can you expand on that a little bit? What is fulfilling about the work that you do, how you obviously receive a lot of pushback, and, in circumstances, rightly so. That's the responsibility of the official opposition. But what gives you the passion to do this work?
Ravi Kahlon:Well, when I first ran, I said that I wanted to make a difference in my community and I feel I've been able to do that.
Ravi Kahlon:And you know, I think anyone that runs I always people always come to me when they want to run for politics and I'm actually the worst person a political party can send somebody to, because I'm brutally honest with people. It's hard on your family If you have young kids. It's really difficult, you know you kind of put your public life in front of everything else and it's hard to have kind of a private life, and you know, but in that being said, it's fulfilling in that you know if you want to make a difference, this is the way to make a difference. You're able to speak for your community. You're able to find initiatives and projects that will help your community become a better place. So it's about community service and that's what I love most about this work is to be able to meet with people. To talk with people help, in many cases, address people's problems Not always, but I find that as a fulfilling endeavor in life.
Aaron Pete:Speaking of elections, I'm wondering if we can talk a little bit about the previous one. What do you think the main takeaways were? My understanding reading a lot of articles is this was not the outcome that I think your government had hoped for in terms of British Columbians' response to the work that you had been doing. How did you digest that process the results of the last election?
Ravi Kahlon:Well, the way I digested it was that people want us to do better. You know, it's one thing to talk about the changes. People want to feel the changes in their lives, and so that was the message that I took out of it A real frustration, not only here in BC. Across the country, across North America, there's the winds of change were, you know, blowing in our face, but despite that, I think we were able to do enough to show the public enough about where we want to go, that we're still here and doing this important work. But you know, we have to make a real difference in people's lives. That's something Premier Eby has consistently hammered into us. People need to see a difference and, you know, when it comes to things like housing, they are starting to see a difference, and so that gives me hope for going forward, but definitely a reminder that we have more work to do.
Aaron Pete:Which housing bill stands out to you? There were several that I got to read about that I think are now. You talked in another interview about this is the implementation period. Can you tell us about some of those bills and which ones do you think would resonate with listeners?
Ravi Kahlon:Well, I would say that all of them, because they all work together. You know, when I first took this role on, somebody gave me a newspaper clipping of Bill Van Der Zandt in 1979. And in that newspaper clipping he actually talked about doing the reforms that we did in the last government. This has been something that's been talked about for a long time cutting red tape, making sure there's more access to housing built in our communities for a long time and we were able to do it and just to touch on the bills as a whole. Essentially, it's saying let's re-look at how housing decisions are made.
Ravi Kahlon:I believe to my core that the housing system is failing young people.
Ravi Kahlon:The system is designed, in fact, to make it harder for young people because those that have housing consistently have a voice in decision-making and those that don't have access to housing are left out of the conversation. So the changes we made were about allowing people to be able to build housing on their land in a more easier way, build housing that's more attainable for people than the big single-family home that is just way too out of reach for many people. It's about changing the way we make decisions engaging with communities early on, identifying what the community should look like, where the housing should go, but once we made that decision, not to relitigate that decision, and so I find all those pieces are important. And, of course, the short-term rentals legislation has had an immediate impact because we've seen dramatically increase in more housing come back online for people that are living in our communities that are struggling for housing. So I'm proud of all of the work. I feel like all the pieces work together and we're starting to see that now on the ground. We're starting to see an impact in communities.
Aaron Pete:Interesting. How important are official community plans from your perspective?
Ravi Kahlon:I think they're very important. All communities in the province have until the end of this year to update their official community plans, and now by law they must do it every five years. So what that means is people are going to get engaged in the process. In my community, delta, we have never seen this much engagement in an official community plan ever, and the reason why is that people know that this is their opportunity to have a say and that anybody that comes within the community plan should be able to build housing.
Ravi Kahlon:So not relitigating decisions, let's engage the community. At one point We'll come back to the community, you know, three, four years, so that they can update it, but I think that's the most prudent way to move forward. And, of course, the official community plan or, in the case of Vancouver, the official development plan, is vitally important.
Aaron Pete:So, if I'm correct in this, one of the challenges that was being faced was that there was, say, like a development plan and then community would have the opportunity for input there. And that's often where they would go. They wouldn't necessarily participate in the official community planning piece and so they had missed kind of the general overview of where the community is going over the next five years and they were kind of using this as piecemeal feedback and that would slow down the process. Am I correct in my understanding?
Ravi Kahlon:Well, I would say that that's not necessarily the case. People may participate in the community plan and the community decides on where they're going, but they might not like the direction, especially if next door it's going to be a triplex and that can be frustrating for some individuals. But the reality is if we go lot by lot, unit by unit, and it's all the people that live next door lining up telling the community why we don't want it we're never going to have housing.
Ravi Kahlon:We're never going to address the challenge and in fact, since we made the changes, we're seeing a whole host of things that before were not imaginable. We're seeing seniors seeing this as an opportunity to downsize, stay in their community but have additional units that they can either rent or sell off. We're seeing in my community, for example, one family that tore down their family home and built four units and now the entire family is living in individual units with their own kids, so intergenerational living all in the same place that they all grew up in. So I think this opens up just a whole host of opportunities. I just met a couple of this couple here in Victoria. They have three other friends. They're all going in together to build a fourplex and all the different friends are going to live in their own units together. I think it opens up a lot of opportunities and opens up homeownership for a lot of folks who thought that the idea of homeownership was dead.
Aaron Pete:How often are you able to zoom out on some of these issues? I'm just thinking a lot of the issues and challenges with the housing crisis. They weren't British Columbians, they weren't the residents' fault that these issues have arisen. These have been policy decisions, whether the federal government, or decisions made that they didn't have any control over. And now they're being encouraged, I suppose, to kind of look at okay, maybe we have smaller units, maybe we build more houses and I just think, like the Canadian dream from my perspective is always to have that white picket fence, that property on a nice quarter acre or something like that. And I think Canadians are adapting and British Columbians are adapting. But this wasn't in anyone's plan. I would say Living in a very small apartment was never in anyone's dream vision when they're kids. So how do we kind of balance the need for communities to adapt with the fact that many people, like I'm sure, still would like to be able to have larger properties on larger lots?
Ravi Kahlon:You know this is not some sort of vendetta against a single family home. You know, if people can afford them, they will continue to be built in our communities. But the reality is is people can't afford a full single family home. And if you can have that same size house split into two or three or four and it's more attainable for people and they get to live in a community that they really want to live in, close to schools and parks that they want to, that want it, you know, good for you, go for it.
Ravi Kahlon:I'm not discouraging anybody, but I'm saying what I've heard from not only people my age but people younger, is that the single family home is not affordable and we need to remove barriers for different type of housing to be built. Now I hear you. There are sometimes other policy pieces that have got us to the situation, but I think you can't deny that we haven't been building enough housing. You can't deny that we haven't been building enough affordable housing with government investments. So, yes, there are some pieces that we can control, but there is a lot of things that we can control that we're taking steps to address now.
Aaron Pete:How do you respond to often the official opposition's position that it would be good if government just stepped out of the way. And when you look at their track record, they've often removed themselves and the housing crisis is particularly bad right now probably the worst it's ever been. But during those periods it wasn't great. But that they do have a track record for a reasonable housing market. That wasn't fantastic, nothing to brag about. But they didn't have a lot of government investments in co-op housing or affordable housing.
Ravi Kahlon:Well, we're paying the price for governments walking away from this. I mean, if you look at how much housing we're short right now, if you look at CMHC's definitions and their reports about how much housing we're behind on and you calculate how much housing we would have been building if we had stopped or if we kept building from 2002 or whatever it was, it's the same amount pretty much. And so the gap is partly government saying hey, you know what, we're just going to stay out of this and somehow the problem will solve itself. You know, anyone that works in housing will tell you it's not an overnight fix. The problem grows. It's like a snowball. It's been getting bigger and bigger and bigger and we're paying the price for it. So it's a real challenge.
Ravi Kahlon:And you know I appreciate the official opposition has to say something. It's nice to say slogans like government should get out of the way, but if that was really what they believe, they would have supported our legislation which gets government out of the way, which says, when somebody has a lot, that they can build four units without having to go through an extensive process, which means if a project fits within a community plan, that it shouldn't have to go to additional public hearings. That is getting government out of the way, and so you know we're in a crisis, and that means that you got to put the slogans away and you got to actually start addressing the core issue, and unfortunately, that's not what's been happening here in BC.
Aaron Pete:You've recently had disputes with the city of Richmond and West Vancouver. I'm wondering what do you attribute those disputes to?
Ravi Kahlon:Well, I would say that the dispute hasn't been with the city of Richmond. The city of Richmond, it's a supportive housing issue, and approving supportive housing issue and proving supportive housing in communities is challenging. In this case, you know Richmond is going to have to come back to us with an alternative location Because you know, when it comes to vulnerable people, what I find in this conversation, in our society as a whole not even BC across the country, across North America, is that too often people believe that it's the homeless people that is the problem and what, in fact, the problem is lack of housing. So if you increase housing supply of all types, you are actually helping address homelessness issues as well, Because if you have a limited amount of housing available, those with means will continue to get access to it, but it puts downward pressure on everybody else in society. And so I believe you need to increase housing supply, you need to invest in affordable housing. So government comes from the bottom, private sector comes from the top. It's the only way we're going to be able to address this issue.
Ravi Kahlon:And you know there is instances where local governments don't want to participate. Westman is a cost example. They don't want transit because they're afraid that people with middle incomes or low incomes will come to their neighborhood. You know they don't want to have more housing in their community because they feel like the problem should be solved by somebody else, and the reality is we're all in it together. If the city of North Vancouver and the district of North Vancouver are going to approve housing, well, West Vancouver has to be part of that solution for the North Shore, and that goes for every community in the entire province. And so you know, I'm hoping that we're able to get to a place where all communities will do their part. We're not there yet, but we're making some real progress, because there's a lot of communities that are doing amazing work right now across the province.
Aaron Pete:What happens if municipalities refuse to comply and work within these confines?
Ravi Kahlon:Well, we have legislation in place for communities that don't come anywhere close to their targets.
Ravi Kahlon:Now we have two communities right now West Vancouver and Oak Bay which are like way off their targets. You know we have a lot of communities that are not at their targets, but you can see that they're making some progress. But in those cases we've got two independent advisors that have come in. They're reviewing what the city does in order to make decisions on housing and they're going to issue a report very soon to us on what next steps need to happen to help those communities get on track. So that's the first step and then we'll see what the recommendations are laid out and then we'll take appropriate steps from there. But everyone has to be part of this. It can't be one community in and one community out, because what I hear the most from those communities that are doing it is that people come to them and say, why are we approving housing when that community over there is not doing their part? And we can't have that, especially when you have so many young people that are struggling to access housing.
Aaron Pete:The next piece I want to talk about and it's personal to me and I'd like to share appreciation for the late John Horgan for advocating for this is the Indigenous Housing Fund. Through BC Housing, my community, chihuahua First Nation, has been supported by BC Housing. We're hoping to start construction in the summer of 2025 and I just wanted to get your reflections on this. I had the opportunity to interview the Premier and I didn't feel like he had a fully fleshed out position on the future of that program. He knows that that's obviously a federal responsibility, but the piece that I should have brought up to him in that interview was just thinking about the fact that an incredibly high amount of individuals who are living homeless throughout all urban settings are Indigenous people, and a lot of that is caused by the fact that there isn't sufficient housing within their community.
Aaron Pete:I worked as a native court worker for nearly five years and really got to understand the fact that many people want to be at home, but homes are already 20 people to a four-bedroom house.
Aaron Pete:That's just not feasible, and CMHC is a good partner, as is Indigenous Services Canada, but the fact that BC Housing comes to the table and brings in provincial code and municipal code standards is something most First Nation communities have never seen. They're on federal land, so there is no provincial standards, there is no municipal standards on which the homes are built, and so they were always built to a lower standard, and so they were always built to a lower standard. This will be the first time my community gets high quality housing at an affordable rate and it allows members to move home and bring down a lot of the pressure on homelessness within municipalities like Chilliwack, but also allows people who are barely scraping by to be able to come home, and I'm a huge advocate for this program because I just don't see CMHC or Indigenous Services Canada stepping up, and I just wanted to get your understanding of the program and what your thoughts are.
Ravi Kahlon:Yeah, you summarized it very well. I agree with every single thing that you've just said. That program has been huge. We're the only province in the country that has been funding Indigenous housing, both on and off reserve. It's a source of great pride for me. No other province is investing in this and I've visited so many nations where there's housing coming online and I can tell you it is game changing Elders getting a space of their own with additional bedrooms because sometimes you got the grandkids or other family members coming to stay with you, having culturally appropriate space in the housing so that people can store their belongings for feasts and other important, significant events in their communities.
Ravi Kahlon:Housing is core. It's health care, it's mental health, it's community building and so, yeah, I'm a strong advocate for it. One of the first asked and the only ask that we made to the federal government was you know what? Match us? No other province wants to put dollars in. Just match us dollar for dollar, because you're right, I've met with too many leaders within the First Nations community who are like the last time we had housing was from CMAC 60, 70 years ago. It's the same building. It's in disrepair, there's mold, and how do you live in that type of environment? And, yes, you're going to see people go into city centres to try to find access to supports and access to housing and connect with families and then get trapped in that cycle.
Ravi Kahlon:What we're seeing right now with the Indigenous Housing Fund is a lot of nations who are saying, guess what, because of this housing that we built, we have people coming back. People are, for example, seabird, seabird Band I was there when we announced the housing there and they're saying we have people coming back to the community. That's a sign of a healthy nation, when people, when your population is growing, when people are coming back and participating in your local school. And so, yes, I'm a proponent of that, I'm a big proponent of that. We're going to find ways to continue to expand that program. But I'll also tell you that the Community Housing Fund, which is also an additional stream, that's for everyone, almost a quarter of that is Indigenous housing providers, and so we're seeing that space grow dramatically. And lastly, I'll just say that I was at the Silcatine Nation dramatically. And lastly, I'll just say that I was at the Silcatine Nation meeting with Chief Alphonse and many of their housing advocates.
Ravi Kahlon:They shared with me that they did a poll amongst all their members and they thought rights and title would be number one, and they had this list of what elected officials had in their mind. Housing was by far the number one issue amongst all their members. And I go nation by nation and I hear the same thing. So you know one of the things that I would say to the new federal leader, or to any leader that's running in the next federal election prioritize Indigenous housing. We address that challenge. Not only are we creating a more equitable society, but we're also addressing a lot of other pressures that we're seeing in our communities.
Aaron Pete:I'm so glad that you see it the same way because, from my perspective, if you can't live at home within your community, you're disconnecting yourself from your family, you're disconnecting yourself from the people who understand you, whether it be cultural practices or just people you've grown up with, and so when you leave that, I find you're more vulnerable.
Aaron Pete:Like I interviewed inez louie a long time ago and she talked about going from um, the, the chilliwack area, all the way to ubc and the culture shock you feel from growing up on reserve to being in a big, large institution and how that kind of has a difference of experience for people and just joining on council in 2022, seeing that a lot of the homes were in disrepair, a lot of the investments there was funding from Indigenous Services Canada, but the process to apply for it was complicated and so many people didn't look at that and the extent at which BC Housing's willing to work with us, adapt to what we're seeking has really impressed me and, like again just going back to being a native court worker, I wanted to see a lot of those issues addressed but I didn't have any tools at my disposal.
Aaron Pete:It was relying on the existing tools and community resources. But being on council, I'm able to work with our team, develop a housing strategy through Indigenous Services Canada, apply to BC Housing for funding and they've been an amazing partner supporting us through this process, and that just gives me a lot of hope on where we're going and how we address some of those systemic issues we've heard so much about.
Ravi Kahlon:Yeah, and nothing more frustrating when it comes to building code, when we hear about dollars going to fix housing and it's done inadequately. You know it's a real concern, and especially in smaller communities. But you know we're seeing so much progress. Nations are taking their housing on themselves and saying we want learn together but also be able to make sure that nations have then the capacity for them to be able to keep the housing upkeep all the way through. That, I think, is the greater partnership. The housing is important, but that institutional change actually is the game changer for many years, generations going forward game changer for many years, generations going forward.
Aaron Pete:A few tough questions for you. If the policies are working, why are housing starts down 11% this year?
Ravi Kahlon:Well, I would say that, first off, the last four years have been the highest housing starts in BC's history. So last year was the highest housing starts ever and so, yes, you can say we're 11% lower than the highest we've ever been. But we have had the last lower than the highest we've ever been, but we have had the last four years the highest ever. So we have headwinds. I mean I'm not denying interest rates going up real fast, the cost of goods and materials going into our projects. Now the tariffs we got tons of headwinds but we are double per capita of Ontario. We are dramatically higher than most other jurisdictions. Only Alberta this year passed us per capita for housings.
Ravi Kahlon:But if you look at the last seven years we have been blowing things out of the water and that gives me hope. And what we're seeing already in communities is vacancy rates are going up. You know CMHC actually projects that if we keep going on the trend line we're going on, we can start seeing communities like Victoria and other communities at 3%. That is unheard of in communities in British Columbia. We're seeing rents, according to rentalsca, coming down for the last nine months Every month, new units going on their site for less and less money. So you know these are good indicators that we're heading in the right direction. We're not there yet. We have a lot more work to do.
Aaron Pete:Why has Vancouver's Expo lands sat undeveloped for 40 years?
Ravi Kahlon:Yeah, frustrating. I mean, if you want to poster child, for why you just don't give up private lands, public lands, to private interests and hope that will solve the problem. There's one, I mean, Little Mountain is another one, this is another one, and so you know it's frustrating. And one of the things that we're working on right now is saying to Concord, the company that owns the land, and to the city of Vancouver let's get to the table and let's figure out what the problem is and let's start getting shovels in the ground. Those are thousands of homes that can help address a major crisis that we have. And I appreciate the land was sold 40 years ago. I mean it's crazy to think that X486 is 40 years tomorrow and there's still nothing to show for it. But I'm determined that that's going to be one of the pieces that we get across the line. We're already starting that conversation and I'm hopeful we will move it forward.
Aaron Pete:How real is the US tariff threat and what's BC's plan? Very real.
Ravi Kahlon:And I am, you know, I was the Minister for Economic Recovery through the pandemic, and I can tell you the same trauma has come back right up again, because in this case, this is more unpredictable than COVID was, and so that's a real challenge for us, and so the threat is real. We're taking it very seriously. We're looking at measures to be able to respond to tariffs, because you have to respond. You can't simply say they're going to put tariffs on us and we're going to say it's OK, because if we do that, there's more coming. I can guarantee you that we're working on elements to strengthen. The Premier announced 18 projects that will be expedited that will help with our economic growth, mostly around clean energy. Twelve of those projects are majority First Nations ownership, which is amazing. That's something you never would have heard of before, and so we have a lot of work to do. And then, lastly, to diversify. We have to find new markets, more to Asia, more across the country, and those are the things that we're working on right now.
Aaron Pete:Field hockey or politics. Which is tougher?
Ravi Kahlon:Well, you know what? My first team I ever played on in field hockey was an all-girls team, because there was no boys playing at that time, and when I walked in the field I thought this is great, and then I left the field beat up and bruised because the girls decided that they wanted to teach me a lesson. So I would say that was tougher than than politics. But overall, politics is real life and it impacts people's lives, and so I find that much tougher than a sport that I love, that I was committed to, but when you took your uniform off, you were not impacting others' lives as much.
Aaron Pete:It seems like we're in a very tumultuous time. There's a lot of unknowns. What would you say to British Columbians right now?
Ravi Kahlon:Well, I would say to them that just like through the pandemic, just through other crises, we're going to be that. Just like through the pandemic, just through other crises, we're going to be there. We're going to be there to support them. We're going to support workers who are worried about the impacts of forestry mining. We're going to work with First Nations communities to ensure that they're part of the recovery that will come from this. We're going to work with all partners, and what gives me the most hope is that all our partners are at one table talking about solutions together, as opposed to every community in their corner trying to figure out what they're going to do. And so we're going to make it through. I'm confident of that. There will be some challenging days ahead, but I'm just proud of the response we're seeing across the country.
Aaron Pete:Minister, I really appreciate you being willing to take the time. Please tell people how they can follow along with your work.
Ravi Kahlon:Well, you can follow me on social media and certainly we're pretty public with all the things we're doing, and I certainly hope that you'll have me back on again for an update of how things are going.
Aaron Pete:That sounds fantastic. First, I'd just like to thank you. I find you to be very engaged in the communications process and I think obviously it's a temperament thing for some people it's hard to put yourself out there, but your willingness to engage during the last election really stood out to me personally and your willingness to do interviews like this. You didn't know what questions I was going to ask. I think that is a sign of a healthy democracy when we're able to have these conversations, and I just really appreciate you and your team for being willing to take this time. Thank you.
Ravi Kahlon:I raise my hands to you. Thank you for creating the space for this.
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