LETTER: Langley City apartment demolition hurts poor and low-income renters

Dear Editor,

I write this letter due to the proposal that has been registered with the City to tear down Pyramid Apartments which I am opposed to.

Rent in Langley City, as well as the whole of Canada, has skyrocketed, and people on fixed- and low-incomes cannot afford these rents that have gone out of control.

Renovations are needed in this building concerning some apartments without adequate heating due to single pane windows and insulation. There are other improvements that are needed that have been going on for years that haven’t been addressed by owners.

• Langley City policy on relocation of tenants

Demolition of this building will put people in dire straits as the costs of everything is continually increasing, but their income and pensions do not keep up with the costs of living.

I strongly oppose the idea that people are nothing more than a dollar sign for corporations to make profits off the backs of the poor or low-income people, and justify it by building a building that will only house higher income people.

I strongly oppose the destruction of this building and its method of carelessness of not guaranteeing housing that is suitable and affordable for every tenant who resides there no matter how long they have lived there.

Over the years this country has moved to smaller and smaller living space for tenants so big business can make more profit without any regard to the individual’s mental or social needs, and I believe this thought-line is detrimental to one’s well-being and as a whole to society. Every person is not the same, and to house and build coffin-like sized housing builds an ill reflection of what we are becoming, a state determined structure that we as individuals are no longer recognized or needed, and therefore are discarded as unimportant.

Housing is a basic, qualified innate right from birth to our last days here on earth, and if the system in its designing ways take that right from us, we become redundant.

I oppose strongly any demolishing of a building that houses tenants if there is no written guarantee that these tenants costs are not being fully covered to the next place. Any type of housing that is replacing the building must and should have low-income housing in its structural plan based on income.

All housing now should be built with a green objective to provide the best and safest usage of the land.

As the world turns so must our thought pattern for its our own preservation is at stake now.

Cran Campbell, Langley City

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• READ MORE: Senior fears homelessness in the face of eviction

• READ MORE: Demand for housing continues to outstrip supply

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