🌿 From Towers to Tiny Homes: A Better Vision for Real Social Housing
by Tina Winterlik aka Zipolita
“We’re not cars. We’re people. We need roots, not just roofs.”
For nearly 30 years, I’ve lived in and around Vancouver, often on the edge of housing — sometimes pushed out, sometimes finding a way back. I’ve seen it all: renovictions, supportive housing that doesn’t support, and neighbours who didn’t make it through.
I’ve also seen community. The kind that grows in shared gardens, on balconies covered in flowers, where neighbours knock on each other’s doors and remember each other’s names.
So when I hear about proposals to build 21-storey “social housing” towers — like the one in Kitsilano — I worry. Not because I don’t want people to be housed. I absolutely do.
But I want it done right.
🏗️ The Problem With Tower Solutions
A tower can hold 200 people. But does it build community?
- Will you know your neighbour?
- Will there be a place to plant a tomato?
- Will the hallway smell like smoke?
- Will you feel like a person — or just another body that needed to be "off the street"?
And will it be like the place in Surrey — where a woman died and no one noticed, because staff mistook her for someone else?
That’s not social housing. That’s institutional neglect.
🛖 The Tiny Home Alternative — With a Green Heart
Tiny homes work — but not when they’re treated like trailers in a storage yard.
We need tiny homes in real neighborhoods. Down every third street. On church land. On co-op green space. In parking lots that are turned into gardens first, with homes built into them — not the other way around.
- Not just boxes — but beautiful, creative, nature-connected homes.
- Trees, flowers, bees, art, and space to breathe.
- Car-free zones. Community kitchens. Shared bike racks. Murals. Medicine gardens.
- The kind of place where you don’t just live — you heal.
🌻 Real Social Housing Is About Belonging
Right now, we build towers to keep people away from us — not to welcome them.
Let’s turn that around.
- Let’s build villages, not warehouses.
- Let’s re-integrate, not isolate.
- Let’s make sure elders, artists, people with challenges, single parents, and anyone struggling can live in the neighborhood — not stacked above it or pushed out of it.
🗣️ Reflective Questions for You & Your Neighbours
- Would you feel safe and happy living in a 21-storey building where most people are dealing with trauma?
- Would you support tiny homes on your block — if they came with gardens and a community space?
- Do you know anyone who’s been displaced by renoviction or housing costs?
- What kind of community do you want to build — and who gets to belong there?
✨ Let’s Dream Differently
I’m not against helping people. I’m for helping people better.
Let’s stop thinking in terms of “how many bodies can we fit in a building?” and start asking, “How many people can we help grow in a community?”
That’s the kind of social housing I’d want to live next to.
That’s the kind I’d be proud to call my own.
— Tina Winterlik aka Zipolita
Artist, advocate, and Vancouver resident since the ‘90s
tinawinterlik.blogspot.com | @zipolita
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