New article: Tenant experiences in 1960s-1970s Vancouver

What does a rental crisis look like from the inside? My latest academic article, published in Histoire sociale/Social History, explores how tenants in Vancouver navigated the low availability and rising cost of housing in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with a particular focus on the everyday problems they experienced finding and keeping an apartment. It is based on contemporary sources including newspapers, industry documents, and the archives of local activists, juxtaposed with tenant complaints to Vancouver’s Rental Accommodation Grievance Board. Throughout, I try to bring tenants’ everyday experiences into dialogue with wider changes in housing and the city, including the end of the postwar construction boom and the consolidation of an apartment world organized around big landlords and the logic of real estate investment. This, I hope, provides a fresh perspective on a period when, like today, public attention was riveted on the availability and affordability of urban housing, opening a space for tenants to speak out about their experiences.

The article is available to subscribers through Histoire sociale/Social History‘s site, and soon through other outlets.