Identity politics won’t solve housing problem

Re: “Affordable housing prescribed for Fairfield bout of ‘affluenza,’ ” Dec. 7. How sad to see Coun. Ben Isitt using divisive Trumpian tactics in arguing for affordable housing. Almost everyone — including those of us in Fairfield — agrees it’s badly needed. But name calling and playing to identity politics won’t help.

Isitt says he wants to be our next mayor. So his ideas matter. And what’s his affordable housing solution? “De-commodifying.”

De-commodifying means pricing private property according to what the occupant can pay instead of market value. It’s synonymous with: “From each according to ability, to each according to need.” Just because Karl Marx fathered this concept doesn’t make it bad. But it’s certainly revolutionary for Victoria. And the idea has never worked anywhere it has been tried.

Isitt says some private landowners owe the community de-commodified housing. And he has decided one such place is real estate in Cook Street Village belonging to someone other than himself.

The best leaders lead by example. So I suggest Isitt de-commodify a piece of his own property to show us. Remember his 2016 advocacy for a tent city in a neighbourhood he had no connection with while simultaneously voting to ban overnight camping in a park next to the home of his ex-wife and daughter? Doesn’t that feel like de-commodifying the other guy’s land but not your own?

Any owner has the right to decommodify to make his own land more affordable. But it’s called expropriation when done by the government under the pretext of land-use regulation. Terry Colyer Victoria