Several members of the Hua Ren (ethnic-Chinese) Environmental Network, of which I am a member, have expressed concerns with the mainstream media and its coverage of Andy Yan’s recent study. (This is a good reminder of the urgent need to support independent media outlets.) Yan analyzed housing sales in westside neighbourhoods using, among other criteria, “non-Anglicized Chinese names.”

Our concerns were not so much around the study of foreign real estate investment, but the ensuing use of race and nationality as a scapegoat for Vancouver’s serious housing problems. The commentary around this recent study harkened back to the racist undertones of “Hongcouver” and “yellow peril” in the 1980s and 1990s.

I’m a young-ish, ethnic Chinese, fourth generation Canadian, born and raised in Vancouver. In the late 1990s, my parents built a so-called “monster home” in Shaughnessy. A few weeks before it was completed, our house was burned to the ground in an act of arson. My best friend and neighbour woke up in the middle of the night from the intense heat of the fire to call the police and then my dad. Such was the level of hatred towards people like my parents — and it still exists today.

The good news is there are people working hard on this issue locally, and the movement is growing.

If you genuinely care about finding solutions to the housing crisis, as I believe most people do, then speak up and refocus the debate on the vital issue of inclusionary zoning. Marc Lee of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has described inclusionary zoning as “an approach that carves out a percentage of newly constructed unit as affordable.”

During our last municipal election, a new political party, OneCity, ran on an ambitious affordable housing strategy, and the response from voters was supportive. Their housing solutions included a “flipping levy” to discourage speculative investment, a “20 over 5” approach to create affordable housing (20 per cent of homes from new developments with five or more units are devoted to low- and middle-income residents), and a call for reliable housing data and a national housing strategy. Most importantly, they vowed to strictly limit the amount of money developers can donate to municipal political parties.

There’s a lot that needs to be done on the provincial and federal levels too. Unfortunately, I don’t trust our current B.C. government to do anything substantial when you consider their close ties with large developers and their blatant disregard for transparency (such as the #TripleDelete email scandal). Let’s hope the new federal government does better.

There’s also a lot of inspiring work being done by a coalition of grassroots community groups to protect Vancouver’s rich heritage in Chinatown, and to protect seniors’ housing and food security. For example, the #ThisIsChinatown campaign reminds us that Vancouver’s Chinatown is “a living community created out of struggle, resilience and hope.”

You can also geek out on five years of related reporting and resources at The Housing Fix by The Tyee Society. It’s a year-long investigative media project to help make Canada a count where everyone can afford a safe, secure, and suitable place to live.

This much is obvious: the housing market won’t fix itself.

Developers are great at what they do, but they are driven purely by profit. And they do a damn good job at it. They profit immensely from Vancouver’s wild west real estate market, and are literally jet-setting around the world in luxury while we struggle back home to even find decent rental housing. They pay for extravagant staff vacations in Europe and Asia, while subcontracted construction workers toil in precarious and low-paying jobs.

I’m not attacking developers — I have too many friends who make a living working incredibly hard for them — but it’s time we changed the rules of the game and stopped allowing them to influence our policy decisions. They’ll adapt and be just fine.