Below the Radar Transcript
Episode 142: Solidarity as One Antidote to the Housing Crisis — with Nick Montgomery
Speakers: Paige Smith, Melissa Roach, Nick Montgomery
[theme music]
Paige Smith 0:02
Hello listeners! I’m Paige Smith with Below the Radar, a knowledge democracy podcast. Below the Radar is recorded on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.
On this episode of Below the Radar, our Communications Coordinator, Melissa Roach, is joined by Nick Montgomery, a writer, theory nerd, permaculturalist, co-author of ‘Joyful Militancy: Building Thriving Resistance in Toxic Times,’ and co-creator of Solidarity Housing, a new project that supports homeowners in transitioning their homes to become permanently affordable housing. I hope you enjoy the episode!
[theme music fades]
Melissa Roach 0:46
Welcome to the show, Nick. I'm very happy that you're able to join us today. And I've long wanted to talk to you, just knowing of your work through our mutual friend and a friend of the pod, carla bergman, who's actually been on Below the Radar to speak about Joyful Militancy, which is really fantastic. We'll put the link to that in the show notes. But I'm excited to speak to you about a project that's about to launch and I don't know a whole lot about, but I'm very excited to hear about, Solidarity Housing. But yeah, if you wouldn't mind sharing a little bit about yourself, for people who don't know you and a bit of an intro to the project, and also where you're calling in from that would be great. I'm on Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh lands in what's known as Vancouver. And that's where I'm coming from today.
Nick Montgomery 1:34
Cool. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Yeah. So my name is Nick Montgomery. And I'm calling today from K'omoks, Pentlatch and Qualicum lands, and that's Sla'dai'aich or Denman Island. And I've lived here for a couple of years now. And before then, I lived on Lekwungen territory in Victoria for about a decade. Yeah, and I don't exactly know how to say what I do or what I am. But I wrote a book with carla, like you mentioned, and I'm a gardener and permaculturalist. And I teach at universities sometimes. Yeah, that's me. Thanks for having me.
Melissa Roach 2:22
Fantastic. Yeah, thank you so much for being here. If you're ready to jump into Solidarity Housing, and speak a bit about what conversations led to it, and if there's a spark for the idea, and give us a bit of a background about it, that would be fantastic.
Nick Montgomery 2:36
Sure, yeah. I guess, there's probably a few things that sparked it, but it's definitely been a slow build. And I guess one piece of context is that I've lived in collective houses for the last probably 15 years. And the same with most of my friends. And we've always rented. And that process of sharing things has made it possible for a lot of us to live, you know, weirder, more interesting, more alternative lives, because you don't have to work 40 or 50 or 60 hours a week to pay rent. For a lot of us, that also meant being organized in events and making art and spending time with kids and doing community organizing. So in some ways, it was really great, but it has always also been unstable. So there's a constant threat of getting evicted. And with this project, we're calling that structural precarity. That kind of sense that maybe even if you have a good living situation right now, you're always kind of facing down the threat of renoviction. In that time, I've seen a lot of collectives and families being pushed out of Victoria and Vancouver over the last decade. And sometimes people would struggle to find a rental. Even if they found one, it would be smaller and more expensive. And then at other times they just have to leave the city. And so I've seen a lot of friends move north or to another province. And as you know, carla, the co founder of Solidarity Housing ended up in similar conversations with youth in Vancouver. And so like when you talk to young people about 'what do you need to thrive?', stable housing is always at the top of the list. And I think it was impossible to see for a lot of people, how can you have a thriving life, you know, making art and being part of a community when you're putting most of your paycheque into rent. And the place you're renting might not even be around next year. Since those conversations started, a lot of things have gotten worse. So you know, housing prices have doubled. Rent has gone up. There's even more incentive for landlords to renovict and sell their homes. carla and her family have been forced to move twice since the pandemic began. I live on Denman island now and the situation is quite similar. So, housing prices have skyrocketed, and it's really difficult to find any rental housing, the only way that we found a rental was through kind of networks of friendship. I guess, you know, I'm saying all that as context. But that context is probably pretty obvious to anyone listening to this, that there's a desperate need for stable, affordable housing. And I guess the more particular context is a few years ago, a bunch of us who were living collectively, we kind of sat down and did some math and realize that if we did have them if we did buy this house and and somehow got a mortgage that monthly mortgage payment would be about the same as rent. And so that kind of got us thinking well, like, well, what if? Why are we paying off landlords' mortgage? Like what if we could do it ourselves? And so, no bank would lend to a bunch of low-income people working in unstable jobs. But it did get us thinking that, you know, rent is usually just paying down somebody else's mortgage. So how could we create some sort of alternative that's more stable, where we know, as the residents, we're not going to get evicted? And where monthly payments just don't just go to private landlord?
Melissa Roach 6:23
Yeah, it's something that hangs over your head as a tenant, for sure, the possibility of eviction. And like you're talking about the mortgage, the huge down payment, it just highlights the inequality of a huge gap. And through things like intergenerational wealth and land theft, that have just exacerbated it and made this huge barrier to entry for security in housing.
Nick Montgomery 6:50
For sure.
Melissa Roach 6:51
Yeah, so what shape will Solidarity Housing take? And what kind of model are you looking at right now?
Nick Montgomery 6:58
Well, I guess the basic idea is that it's a transaction mechanism that enables homeowners to transition their house to nonprofit ownership, while receiving monthly payments. I'm still kind of learning how to talk about this in a non technical way. And I'm not a technical housing person. But it's basically trying to recognize that a lot of homeowners might actually be interested in sharing some of what they have. But for a lot of them, their house is their nest egg, and maybe their only asset. So they have kind of put all their money into their house, maybe they're struggling to make mortgage payments, or maybe they paid off their mortgage. But even if they have, the only money that they have is tied up in their house, so they can't just give their house away. But if they could maybe receive monthly payments, then they could share the house or downsize to a smaller place. So kind of like what landlords do, except instead of being a landlord ownership of the house actually transitions to a nonprofit, new people move in, and the new residents lease or rent the space. And so some of that money goes to the former homeowner to support their living expenses. And then some of it goes into a fund to support repairs and stuff like that. So in financial speak, it's... often a way that helps people understand it is it's kind of like a nonprofit version of a reverse mortgage, or a vendor take-back mortgage. So the homeowner gets, in a sense, the homeowner is lending a land trust the money to buy the house from them, but the payments will probably end up being less than they would get if they did a private reverse mortgage. So they get these monthly payments instead of a lump sum. The Land Trust becomes the new owner, new residents pay the payments. And then the Land Trust has a mandate to provide permanently affordable housing. So the thing that we are excited about impart is that it's a way for homeowners to kind of end this cycle of speculation and accumulation. It's not going to get sold ever again. No one's going to be around evicted, and no one's going to get rich off of it either.
Melissa Roach 9:20
Yeah, it's systematically taking it out of the market. It's incredible, like how many potential solutions there when you apply imagination and creativity to the housing crisis that really like needs no introduction, where we are, where you are. I wanted to ask you bringing it back to Joyful Militancy, because you're talking about one of the things that, especially youth have said that they need to thrive, and I think everyone needs to thrive, is a secure home. And thinking about Joyful Militancy, and making the connection between thriving and resistance as something that you have thought a lot about and written a lot about. How do you see the resistance piece and the connection between thriving and resistance show up in solidarity housing, and then the principles that you're working with?
Nick Montgomery 10:16
Mm hmm. Yeah, that's a good question. I think part of it is that a lot of the values that we talked about in the book like trust and responsibility, care, curiosity, creativity. Those are really difficult to embody when you're worrying about where you're going to live next month. And so part of what we're talking about in this project is structural precarity makes it so that people are constantly stressed and fearful. And that also makes it impossible to put down roots in a place if you're not sure if you'll be there in a few months or a year. So yeah, solidarity housing came out of wanting to create, I guess create the conditions for people to feel like their living situation is stable so that we all have more capacity to even ask what a thriving life looks like. And for me personally, it also came out of wanting to provide a more stable container for collective houses that I have seen act as real nodes in networks of resistance, and community organizing, and just living differently. And so I think in a lot of places, these collective houses are often a real backbone of radical communities. They're, you know, a place for people to experiment with radical alternative ways of living. They're a way to communalize a lot of life and share dishes and food and tools. They're a real hub, often for people to gather and organize and share food and have meetings. And renoviction, often just shatters them. So people move elsewhere, and often aren't able to kind of recreate the hub in the same city. And so that particular hub or node is just gone. And so I'm hoping that this model will help create some stability for those hubs so that when people do create a collective house, and it is really thriving, it's not going to get destroyed by renoviction, or by the landlord deciding that they don't want those people living there anymore.
Melissa Roach 12:26
Yeah, ‘cause the kind of housing that it takes to house a collective is a detached home and maybe it's older so people can afford it. And it's really like, prime for redevelopment or for profit. So yeah, it's cool. It's, it's cycle breaking stuff.
Nick Montgomery 12:46
Yeah. Well, it's also so prime for weirdos to fix it up themselves and add on things and, you know, put solar panels on and do gray water. And but none of that stuff you can do as a tenant so that there is... Yeah, it's like you say it's, it's prime for yupification. But it's also prime for people doing really interesting things if it can be gotten away from private market.
Melissa Roach 13:14
Yeah. I like that you talked about food, too, because that's one thing I think about in my, you know, one bedroom rental life is not having outdoor space, or having a garden where you can do things like grow your own food, and like you said, have have kind of alternate ways of being and sustaining yourself. That's just an aside, where my head went. Yeah. The other thing I wanted to ask you was about the solidarity in Solidarity Housing. And maybe this is my, like, renter's bias. But my... I was wondering like, how, how do you frame the solidarity piece to homeowners not saying that there are renters who also just like, get it. Yeah. How do you explain the solidarity piece or pitch it to people who could potentially participate and transfer ownership of their home?
Nick Montgomery 14:06
Yeah, great question. And I, I think, I mean, to be honest, it's something that we're still figuring out and learning about, and I'm sure it'll change as we have new conversations with homeowners. But for now, we're trying to keep it pretty simple. And the definition of solidarity that we have on the website is that acting in solidarity just means supporting others, because we have a stake in their thriving. So I'm supporting you, not because I'm just a good person or because you're in desperate need. But it's because I actually want to see you do well, because I see how that will support the kind of worlds that I want to be in, like I actually have a stake in you doing well. And so I think what we're hoping that does when we talk to homeowners about it is that we're speaking to something that a lot of them are already looking for, and kind of trying to trust that homeowners, some homeowners actually want to be in solidarity with people facing housing precarity. But there aren't a lot of tools. And with housing and property in particular, there's a lot of shame and guilt and fear. And, you know, people are angry that homeowners have these huge assets. And middle class people and homeowners are trained to not talk about what they have. So it's you know, it's a private thing. It's something you don't talk about. And so, part of what we're doing is trying to find ways to have different kinds of conversations that aren't kind of telling homeowners, they're bad for owning a home. But thinking about it as an opportunity, like, okay, you have this wealth, it's stolen land, you know, you don't deserve to have it, no one deserves to have it. And there's an opportunity to kind of leverage it in ways that create permanent affordability instead of private wealth. And so there's a way to change the way that private property works to create an alternative. So I think ultimately, we're not hopefully not trying to kind of sell homeowners on this idea. Instead, we want to find people to connect with who are kind of excited about the idea and see its potential, because they're actually already looking for a way to do solidarity, but the tools haven't been there to actually support them. Because there just aren't a lot of tools to do this right now.
Melissa Roach 16:38
Yeah, yeah, for sure. One thing that I've heard you say before in another talk is that one hope is that solidarity housing as a framework, as a model, could potentially serve other communities beyond kind of the initial project that you're doing that's place-based here. So I'm wondering, how do you see that model potentially being taken up by other communities? And I mean, maybe there are places where it wouldn't work or would work really well. But how do you see it potentially feeding other other places, other communities?
Nick Montgomery 17:17
Yeah, I think, I mean, I think we're gonna find out as we go. But we're working to create resources and materials that are open source, and hopefully readily adapted to other communities. So a lot of this model is part of what makes it difficult is just because it's really time consuming and expensive to create a bunch of legal and financial tools, like you need lawyers, and accountants and consultants. And so part of what we want to do is when once we have these contracts, and lease agreements, and rental agreements, offer them as kind of examples and templates and all that stuff, so that anyone can use it and adapt it to their own context in their own places. And then the other piece is clarifying how the process of transition actually works. So how do you get from, you know, homeowner thinks this is a cool idea to homeowner actually signs an agreement that transitions ownership of their property to a land trust? What are the stages in that? Who's involved at what stage. And we have an idea of that now, but it's going to become a lot clearer when we undertake some pilot projects. And then we're hoping to share that too. And say, you know, this is what we did, this is what we would do differently, this is the thing to watch out for. So yeah, I think we are really hoping that it is a model that's taken up by other communities. And we, like I've had conversations with people in other cities who are excited about it. And so it's possible that we could end up doing this in parallel too. Like, maybe people will be excited enough to try it and find some homeowners who are interested in there could be pilots in other places, if people have the capacity for them.
Melissa Roach 19:09
Yeah, that would be really cool. I'm thinking back to the piece said about looking for people who own their home, that are already searching for ways to be in solidarity. And to maybe not explicitly give back the land is in their mind, but thinking about mutual aid, because when you read Joyful Militancy, like mutual aid is like a heartbeat throughout it, right? And I'm friend with carla and we talk about mutual aid all day. But what what would you say to people who are kind of newer to the idea of mutual aid, and like, like we've said, like, it's something that is inherent to us, like we know that we need to be in community with people and humans thrive in cooperation, but people who maybe aren't used to practicing it intentionally in our community, or even with strangers. Are there any things that you would say to people who are in that zone?
Nick Montgomery 20:08
Yeah, I mean, I got excited about mutual aid as part of this kind of big picture of, you know, I think it's at the core of the kind of transformation that we need, and it's constantly being crushed by the market and by institutions, and it gives people the confidence that we can be okay if we get hurt or we don't have a job or we need help. And I've believed that and tried to practice about it and been excited about it for a long time. And I think lately, one thing I've been thinking about it is how it's, you know, beyond the big picture political stuff. It's also just like a pretty wonderful way to meet people, especially in the context of the pandemic, where social situations are difficult. And so like I said, I live on Denman Island. And there is a really incredible social fabric here. So people are helping each other out and fixing each other's stuff, and sharing food and tools. And getting involved in those networks has been just a great way to connect with people. And personally, I can be pretty awkward and anxious in a lot of kind of more normal social situations. So I'm not always very good at like, small talk. And I can feel a bit aimless at parties and stuff. Like I just don't, I don't know what to do. Oh, should I go talk to that person? I don't know. Maybe they're busy.
Melissa Roach 21:41
I'm right there with you.
Nick Montgomery 21:45
Yeah, one of the wonderful things about connecting with people through mutual aid is because we're doing something together, you know, we're like planting or lifting something or carrying something or waiting or building, then for me, it creates a sense of ease and connection that's often missing in social spaces. And yeah, so I think that's part of what I'm excited about, about mutual aid. And I think, you know, as the pandemic is hopefully waning, there's going to be more opportunity for people to get together. And I think, yeah, mutual aid has this kind of special thing about it, where there's a real materiality to it that we're because we're doing something I think it alleviates a lot of the anxiety or social tension that's often there.
Melissa Roach 22:36
Yeah, I'm just thinking about how I find a lot of my closest friends are friends that I collaborate with on projects or have met through work. And it's the shared task, the common goal that just makes it easier to bond with people and get to know people. Because I'm with you. I'm also, you know, kind of awkward and the reopening has sent my heart aflutter. But yeah, as someone who, like you said, you teach sometimes you're in institutions sometimes. And being housed SFU, I mean, I imagine that we have students who listen to our podcast. I hope they're out there listening. And one question that we often ask is, if people have things they want to impart to young people, but because of your connection to the Purple Thistle Institute, I wanted to ask you if there are things that you've like, like, what have you learned from your students and from young people about being in solidarity and mutual aid? And how have those experiences informed your work as an organizer? And a teacher?
Nick Montgomery 23:43
Yeah, good question. I think, I mean, I guess I hadn't thought too much about students. And it makes me think about during the pandemic, I got to design a course that was based on ungrading, and basically the philosophy that like, we shouldn't be grading students. And not just that we shouldn't be grading them, but the whole apparatus of like evaluating students, and that we're the people who know what good work is, and they're the kind of receptacles for us to train into good workers has to be gotten rid of. And it's really like a Pandora's box, I think of like, a lot of instructors, myself included, would say, like, oh, you know, we don't, we don't want to grade but we have to. And so we're just in this system. Yeah, I guess designing that course has forced me to kind of grapple with how brutal grading is, and I think, has made me want to show up better for students in terms of the assignments and marking and thinking through how can I not... How can I minimize the, like grades in general, and minimize the kind of anxiety and, and oppositional stuff and all just all the weird dynamics that come up around grading, so that students can, you know, be more in charge of their own learning process and actually be guided by their curiosity rather than anxiety that they need a certain grade. And I guess, one of the things that I've learned from younger kids, because I lived for a long time with a couple of young kids at a collective house. And my partner is running a summer camp right now and all that has got me thinking about how I think part of solidarity with younger kids is relearning how to play. And I really had to do that to be able to hang out with the kids that I lived with was like realizing that I had kind of had play smushed out of me. And they just didn't really want to hang out with adults who didn't know how to play. And I remember talking with them a few years ago, and we had this conversation where they said, like, you know, adults are always talking about how they work so hard and blah, blah. And kids have it easy, because they just get to play. And they were like, no playing is actually really hard. And I just thought it was a really cool insight that stuck with me that, you know, playing might be fun, but it's also this really challenging thing. And it's immersive and exhausting, and big feelings come up. And people get hurt sometimes. And it's creative. And it can be quite a serious activity. And I guess, from my adult perspective, it really unsettled any idea that I had of kind of like child care where you're just providing this service, where instead playing with kids is this, like, when you're really deeply playing, it's entering their world, and it means it, I think it's solidarity in the same sense, you're supporting them. But I am also kind of challenging myself to be more present and alive and creative. And they're going to know if they're not really playing, if I if I'm not there. So yeah, I've I have been partly probably because like, summer camp is going on right now. And I'm getting lots of stories about kids playing and, and thinking a lot about play.
Melissa Roach 27:31
Oh, that's cool. I love that. Yeah. And thinking back about the kind of housing situations and living situations that facilitate that kind of intergenerational relationship building and an exchange of like, learning from each other. Yeah, it's something that I mean, it's also kind of like, a Western thing, too, that you don't live with your parents and things. Right. And you're very, like siloed. So thinking about the alternatives that are possible with housing more affordable and sheltered from the volatility of the market is... ah, makes me happy. It makes me hopeful.
Nick Montgomery 28:15
Cool, yeah.
Melissa Roach 28:16
One other thing is how can people get involved with solidarity housing, if they're interested? Where can people go to find you? And I think you said, You mean, you're not quite totally launched yet. And we'll put things in the show notes and wait until they're good to go. But in general, for people who are interested, how can they get involved?
Nick Montgomery 28:35
Yeah, well, we are going to have a website that is hopefully up by the time the show launches, and that's SolidarityHousing.com. And we're hoping that that will be a place for people to kind of encounter the idea. And we're gonna have some frequently asked questions and try to explain it in clear terms and connect it to our values. And then I guess if, you know, if people listen to this podcast, or they go to the website, and it really resonates with them, I think the biggest thing that we're hoping is for people to start having conversations. And so I mean, the whole model, in a way, it really just depends on homeowners being inspired to participate. And the first step in that, I think, is a conversation, and probably a series of conversations. And so I'm anticipating that a lot of homeowners will come to this through conversations with people they really trust and care about already. It's going to be, you know, people talking with their parents or their neighbors or their landlords. And so I think, yeah, if if people are inspired about this, finding ways to talk with homeowners and be like, Hey, is, do you think this is something you could be interested in? The other piece is that we're hoping to get a better understanding of what homeowners in general think about the model. And so we put a survey up on our website. And we'd love if people can share that, with homeowners that they know, we would also love to have help with some of the kind of nitty gritty stuff. And so we are on the lookout for folks who might be willing to contribute legal and financial services pro bono to help the project. And so definitely get in touch if you are someone who might want to volunteer some time with us in terms of accounting or legal stuff. And then there's, you know, the normal stuff. There's a way for people to spread the word and donate to the project on the website. And that obviously helps us move the project forward. And that's that will be used for staff costs and yeah, to kind of make the project go and hopefully run a few pilot projects.
Melissa Roach 30:46
Yeah. Great. Great. Nick, is there anything else you'd like to add?
Nick Montgomery 30:51
I don't know. I mean, I really appreciate you having me on. And it's fun to talk about this project. It's still something, as people can probably tell, it's still something I'm learning to talk about. And it'll change as we have more conversations. But yeah, I am excited about it and excited to be launched.
Melissa Roach 30:10
Yeah, I'm excited too. And we'll make sure to include all the details in the show notes so people know where to find you, and how to learn more. Thank you so much for joining me on Below the Radar, Nick. It's been an absolute pleasure.
Nick Montgomery 31:24
Awesome. Thanks, Melissa.
[theme music]
Paige Smith 31:27
Below the Radar is a knowledge democracy podcast created by SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Thanks for listening to our conversation with Nick Montgomery. This interview was conducted in August and Solidarity Housing has since launched. You can find links to Solidarity Housing and to Nick’s other work in the show notes of this episode. Thanks for listening, and we’ll catch you next time on Below the Radar.
[theme music fades]