One should never feel sympathy for a politician caught in a rule-in rule-out game. Perhaps the period should be after the eighth word, but there is something spectacularly dumb about foreclosing on policy options even when they are not under active contemplation, narrowing the range of debate and allowing its terms to be set by Continue reading »
Housing
Negative gearing costs Australian taxpayers billions each year. Its defenders say abolishing it will cause a rental crisis. That’s not true. One of the great urban myths of Australian political history is that “rents went through the roof” after then-Treasurer Paul Keating abolished negative gearing for property investors in July 1985, and as a result Continue reading »
Ali Jadidzadeh and I recently undertook some statistical analysis on behalf of Infrastructure Canada (Canada’s lead federal government agency on homelessness). Here’s a ‘top 10’ overview of our analysis: https://nickfalvo.ca/economic-and-social-factors-associated-with-the-use-of-homeless-shelters/
Greens poster boy, Max Chandler-Mather, has apologised to his colleagues after missing a party meeting due to being distracted by a mirror. ”The Albanese Government needs to stop doing whatever they are doing and focus on the big issues, like... Read More ›
Pulling children out of rubble, witnessing ill-treatment of Palestinian civilians by Israeli soldiers, witnessing the displaced Gazan population work its way through destroyed streets. In Australia, the Senate debate on housing. These are the items we found on our five-minute scroll on X. Civil defence teams rescue children from rubble @swilkinsonbc Civil defense teams rescue Continue reading »
"'Lessons learned' is an entirely vacuous phrase if lessons aren’t being learned" warns new report after a series of deadly warnings were ignored
A crisis in house prices and availability has been raging for years, particularly the dearth of low cost housing to rent, or buy. Is this housing crisis really a result of market forces, or is it created by previous government tax policies? [read more] Continue reading »
While most Australians remain well-housed, few public policy experts would argue that our housing system is today in good shape. Homelessness continues to increase and both rental and mortgage affordability stress are widespread. But although compounded by post-pandemic market disruption, such problems have been mounting over decades. Perhaps the single most powerful indicator of dysfunction Continue reading »
The looming question for me and my partner is “where might we live as we grow older and frailer?” For us, the ideal place is likely to be a retirement village. But at what cost? Continue reading »
I’m the lead author of a recent report, commissioned by Vibrant Communities Calgary, looking at factors associated with social disorder on public transit (including social disorder involving people experiencing homelessness). Here’s a ‘top 10’ overview of the report: https://nickfalvo.ca/report-finds-insufficient-daytime-options-for-people-experiencing-homelessness/