Housing Action for Local Taxpayers (HALT) is a group of Vancouverites whose goal is to pressure government to take action on local housing affordability.

HALT wrote in to let everyone at VCI know they are holding a rally at the Vancouver Art Gallery this Saturday Sept 17th at 2pm.

They have a  great line up of speakers including Christine Duhaime the Vancouver lawyer focused money laundering.

More information can be found on their Facebook page.

Here’s some info from their comment yesterday:

Specifically we are calling on Government to:
– HALT money laundering and tax fraud by individuals hiding their money in our housing market
– HALT Immigrant Investor Programs that bring in owners who do not contribute to our income tax base
– HALT corporate donations to political parties. For too long, our governments have served moneyed interests and not the interests of the citizens of our city and our province
– HALT AirBnB of our rental stock. We need regulations in place to protect our renters
– HALT demolitions of affordable rentals that are being replaced by unaffordable luxury condos marketed to offshore buyers

We’ve got a great panel of speakers lined up including:
– Christine Duhaime, a lawyer heavily involved in catching foreign money launderers in Vancouver
– Josh Gordon, Assistant Professor, School of Public Policy, Simon Fraser University, who has done extensive research on the impact of foreign capital on our housing market
– Dr. Darren Joneson, whose housing story we featured on our Facebook page
– Caroline Adderson, author of the book “Vancouver Vanishes” owner of FB community of the same name, will talk about demolitions of heritage homes, zoning and how we create density in a liveable, sustainable city
– Paul Kershaw, founder of Generation Squeeze, who will talk about the the challenges millenials face in getting into the housing market and Gen Squeeze’s “Homes First” policy.

Please come out, stand up, be counted, and let our government officials know that enough is enough!

Thanks for your support,
The HALT Team

You can find more info on their Facebook page and at haltvancouver.org.