Dear Editor:
Re: Fergus victory homes tell story of post-war Canada, return to regular life for veterans, Nov. 9.
It’s interesting that Laura Wickett said “the focus was on affordable” about wartime homes. These homes in Fergus were intended to provide affordable housing for returning war veterans.
These homes were meant to be cheap. Currently, as most people in Fergus are aware, house prices have skyrocketed.
I looked at Victory homes on Churchill Crescent currently or recently on the market. Though there weren’t many, the one I did find was priced around $650,000. Victory homes were said to have been sold for between $6,000 to $7,000 originally. That means the price of that house has gone up by about $644,000, or 108 times the original.
I looked for the average cost of a regular house in the 1940s and found a reliable source stating that the average home cost about $42,000 in today’s dollar value. The average house price today is about $880,000. The price of the average home has increased by about $838,000, which is just over 21 times the original number.
I find it unbelievable that the homes originally meant to be affordable for war veterans are no longer like that. They may be cheaper than the average home today, but they increased much more in price.
Canadian homes are no longer affordable, not even the ones specifically built to be that way. I hope that our government will find a good way to solve this problem, because it is getting out of hand.
Keisha Vanleeuwen,
Centre Wellington