What was the biggest story of 2016? Housing. No question about it. In news stories, editorials, columns, and letters to the editor we spilled gallons of ink this year writing about the housing market – the good, and the very, very bad.
At one end of the spectrum there were the high highs – people cashing out for unimaginable millions as detailed in reporter Jane Seyd’s award-nominated series about the real estate gold rush.
At the other end of the spectrum, there was the story about Fran Flann, the 82-year-old woman recovering from breast cancer surgery who was forced to stay in a homeless shelter because there was nowhere else for her to go while her apartment was being treated for bed bugs.
We covered the demolition (and preservation) of heritage houses, shadow flipping, demovictions, multimillion-dollar teardowns, monster homes, the debate over foreign investment, contentious condo developments, coach house squabbles, the implementation of the foreign buyers’ tax, skyrocketing tax assessments, the rental vacancy crisis and an uptick in demand for homeless shelter beds.
Even the stories that weren’t about housing really were.
One of the top grievances about life on the North Shore is our perpetual traffic clog-ups. But the biggest reason for our nightly rush-hour hell is that so many of our workers are exiled by the cost of housing and forced to commute from all points east where homes are more affordable – relatively speaking.
Housing was the story of the haves and the have-nots. Let’s hope 2017 provides a better year for the have-nots. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, shelter ranks just as important as food and water. When food becomes this scarce and hard to obtain for so many, we call it a famine.
What are your thoughts? Send us a letter via email by clicking here or post a comment below.
