CITY 10
Local mom killed in shooting
COMMUNITY 11
EVENTS 15
TV show’s props sold off
Your top 5 for the weekend
FOR THE BEST LOCAL
COVERAGE
THURSDAY APRIL 11, 2019
GO TO PAGE 37
There’s more at Burnabynow.com
LOCAL NEWS – LOCAL MATTERS.
METROTOWN MARCH: Housing activists march near the Metrotown SkyTrain station on Saturday.
PHOTO JENNIFER GAUTHIER
HOUSING
Activists stage rally against ‘rent insanity’
March in Burnaby’s Metrotown area on Saturday showed solidarity with German activists Kelvin Gawley
kgawley@burnabynow.com
Housing activists rallied in Burnaby Saturday in solidarity with an international movement to combat “rent insanity.” The protesters heeded a call from Mietenwahnsinn in Berlin.The German ac-
tivists are leading a movement calling for 200,000 rental apartments to be expropriated and brought under government control. “This really resonated with the work we do in Burnaby, because one of the main issues in the housing crisis is the overwhelming power of landlords over
Free Home Evaluation
Call AL KABANI today 778-773-4646 RE/MAX Central
Burnaby, BC V5H 4C2
| Since 1985 | #1-5050 Kingsway,
778-773-4646 AL KABANI
alkabani@remax.net
people and the fact that housing is a commodity used to make profit and is not there to house people,” said Cécile Revaux, an activist with Stop Demovictions Burnaby. The Alliance Against Displacement offshoot is not making a similar call for expropriation at this time, Re-
vaux said, but the group’s mission is similar to that of Mietenwahnsinn. The rally started at the Metrotown SkyTrain station before visiting several sites where renters have been evicted to make way for new developments.The protesters plastered signs advertising new condo tow-
Order Take-Out. Call 310-SPOT (7768) or order online at www.whitespot.ca
ers with tallies of the number of units demolished and people displaced. They also posted signage shaming the developers for displacing people, including slogans such as “Our communities are not commodities.” According to Stop Demovictions Burnaby, Sat-
urday’s rally was one of 40 such demonstrations worldwide staged in solidarity with the German activists. Mietenwahnsinn is pushing for a referendum in Berlin that, if passed, would see any landlord with more than 3,000 apartments lose their properties to the city, Reuters reports.
SAS BURNABY 5900 KINGSWAY 604.558.4727 SAS SURREY 10340 152ND ST 604.498.4801