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Devyani Singh
Housing & Homelessness
Affordability
Promesses de COPE
"Buy apartments and turn them into permanently affordable public housing and co-ops. Create a right-of-first refusal policy that gives tenants, and then the city, first priority in purchasing existing apartments that go up for sale to turn into affordable housing. Create a Multi‑Unit Residential Acquisition Fund to help land trusts, co‑ops, and non‑profits acquire rental housing and prevent displacement."
— COPE Platform, page 5, Retrieved 2026-10-03
"Support the development of community-led land trusts aimed at protecting land from speculative development and creating permanently affordable housing for public benefit."
— COPE Platform, page 5, Retrieved 2026-10-03
"Support, protect, and expand co-op housing and fight to renew leases for existing co-ops at no charge to preserve affordable homes, prioritize building new co-ops on city-owned land, and push other levels of government to make generational investments in co-op housing. "
— COPE Platform, page 6, Retrieved 2026-10-03
"Protect land held by non-profit community groups from sell-offs to speculative interests. Land owned by faith-based groups and other charitable or non-profit organizations should be mandated to give right of first refusal to another non-market user before selling to the private sector."
— COPE Platform, page 6, Retrieved 2026-10-03
"Stop public land sell-offs that rip us off. For too long, public lands have been given away to the rich and powerful and sold off to make up for budget shortfalls."
— COPE Platform, page 6, Retrieved 2026-10-03
"Preserve, leverage, and expand Vancouver’s public lands for public benefit, and implement a city‑wide public land trust for democratic community control. We need to build permanently affordable public housing for every income level and in every neighbourhood, in partnership with the provincial government, the federal government, host nations, and non-profits."
— COPE Platform, page 6, Retrieved 2026-10-03
"Tax non-resident investors to fund affordable housing for people who live here."
— COPE Platform, page 6, Retrieved 2026-10-03
"Retrofit existing affordable housing for seismic safety and climate preparedness, and work to transfer ownership to tenants, non-profits, or the city"
— COPE Platform, page 6, Retrieved 2026-10-03
"Plan the city to grow where there are single family homes, parking lots, and storefronts, instead of tearing down affordable apartments."
— COPE Platform, page 6, Retrieved 2026-10-03
"Negotiate, build, and secure 20,000+ units of affordable housing for Vancouver, including: In- digenous housing, public housing, co-ops, community land trusts, non-profit housing, support- ive housing, below-market inclusionary zoning, shelter-rate housing, and modular housing."
— COPE Platform, page 7, Retrieved 2026-10-03
"Act as a lead negotiator to bring together a portfolio of stalled public, co-op and non-profit housing sites, and use every tool available to negotiate low-interest loans, secure senior gov- ernment funding, and get affordable housing build."
— COPE Platform, page 7, Retrieved 2026-10-03
"Finance the construction of permanently affordable public housing through taxes on wealth, mansions, and empty lots, bonds, and advocacy to senior governments."
— COPE Platform, page 7, Retrieved 2026-10-03
"Fight for affordable housing, including shelter-rate housing for people on fixed incomes, housing affordable for minimum-wage earners, and middle-income housing for people on a living wage.
Make all neighbourhoods welcoming and supportive for people on all incomes, with afford- able housing in every neighbourhood and with accessible and affordable retail and services."
— COPE Platform, page 7, Retrieved 2026-10-03
Housing Accessibility
Promesse de COPE
"Triple the empty homes tax to put more rental homes on the market and use the revenues to produce affordable housing. When COPE first proposed the Empty Homes Tax in 2014, it was intended to grow over time, but Ken Sim and ABC froze the EHT and created new loopholes for developers to keep units vacant."
— COPE Platform, page 5, Retrieved 2026-10-03
"Use it or lose it. Vancouver doesn’t need vacant lots. We need housing, public services, and local shops and restaurants. Incentivize development without displacement by placing a penalty on land-banking for profit."
— COPE Platform, page 7, Retrieved 2026-10-03
Property Taxes
Promesses de COPE
"Support taxation on land value, capture the land-owner windfalls caused by proximity to pub- lic amenities, speculation, and zoning to use for public benefit instead of private profit."
— COPE Platform, page 7, Retrieved 2026-10-03
"Finance the construction of permanently affordable public housing through taxes on wealth, mansions, and empty lots, bonds, and advocacy to senior governments."
— COPE Platform, page 7, Retrieved 2026-10-03
Public & Assistive Housing
Promesse de COPE
"Mandate redevelopment fees for deeply affordable housing cover the cost of replacement units, and end the waivers and give- aways of SRA conversion fees to developers.
In one vote alone, Ken Sim and ABC waived over $20 million in SRA fees to a developer. SRA fees pay for affordable housing replacement."
— COPE Platform, page 6, Retrieved 2026-10-03
Rent & Rental Stock
Promesses de COPE
"Close the loopholes that landlords use to jack up rents. We’ll fight to keep rents low by fighting to close the vacancy loophole to ensure that rent controls apply between tenants."
— COPE Platform, page 5, Retrieved 2026-10-03
"Stop demovictions with a city-wide anti-displacement policy that protects tenants rights, converts rentals into coops, and prioritizes development without displacement.
- [...]Take what works from the tenant relocation and protection policy (TRPP) and amplify it city-wide with new protections that ensure that violently displacing tenants is not a viable business model.
- Make developers bear the full costs of relocation and coordinate redevelopments so renters get access to the same sized house, meeting the same accessibility needs, in their own neighbourhood.
- Appoint public workers to support tenants during developments, funded by a fee on developers, instead of relying on “tenant relocation coordinators” hired by developers that sometimes ignore tenants or deny them compensation and support. • Leverage city-owned land for swing-site housing for tenants which can later serve as co-op or public housing"
— COPE Platform, page 6, Retrieved 2026-10-03
Biographie
Dr. Devyani Singh is a climate scientist, a finance professional, and a renter running for Vancouver City Council with COPE.
Devyani has spent her career cutting through greenwashing and corporate obstruction — stopping billions of dollars of funding from banks that helped fund oil and gas extraction in the Amazon, exposing the logging of BC old-growth forests being turned into pellets and burned in UK coal plants, and creating real, funded climate justice plans for multiple cities across North America. In Vancouver, she's written climate justice motions that have passed across party lines.
She's running because the housing, affordability, and climate crises are not separate problems — they share the same root cause: corporate greed and the political power of the super-rich. And they share the same solution: reinvesting in the public good, not private profit.
This isn't abstract for Devyani. During her PhD, she paid almost 100% of her stipend toward rent — an experience that shaped her understanding of what "affordable" actually means, and part of what pushed her into politics. As an immigrant who built a life here without generational wealth behind her, she knows exactly what's at stake when city hall serves developers and speculators instead of the people who actually live here.
When elected, Devyani will fight for:
- Stronger renter protections and real vacancy control
- Climate-resilient, genuinely affordable housing at every income level
- Safe, accessible, and affordable public transit
- Fully funded libraries and public services
- Limits on fees for public parks and community centres
- Green space where children and dogs can safely play
- A graduated tax on the city's most expensive properties
- A strong empty homes tax
She's running with COPE because Vancouver doesn't have to be a city that serves the super-rich. It can be a solidarity city — equitable, affordable, and ecological — where people actually flourish.
Raison de la candidature
I'm running for Vancouver City Council because I believe this city can be so much more than it currently is, and I have the tools to help get us there.
As a climate scientist, I've spent my career studying exactly the crisis we're now living through — heat domes, wildfire smoke summers, extreme weather that keeps arriving faster than our infrastructure is built to handle. I know what real climate resilience actually requires, and I know how to tell the difference between genuine action and a press release.
As a finance professional, I've spent years exposing where money actually goes — work that helped stop billions of dollars in funding to companies extracting oil and gas in the Amazon, and exposed old-growth forests being logged and burned in UK coal plants. I know how to follow money through a system designed to hide it, and I bring that same scrutiny to how this city spends, and doesn't spend, its budget.
And as a renter, I've lived the reality so many Vancouverites are living right now. During my PhD, I paid almost 100% of my stipend toward rent. I know what it means to do that math every single month, and I know that "affordable" has to mean something real, not just a label on a press release.
I believe housing, affordability, and the climate crisis are not three separate problems. They share the same root cause — corporate greed, and power concentrated in too few hands — and they share the same solution: reinvesting in the public good, instead of private profit.
When elected, I'll fight to restore the retrofit funding this city needs, bring back real protections for renters, and make sure every policy this city passes is judged by the same standard: is it affordable, is it equitable, and is it built for the climate we're actually going to be living in.
I'm not bringing vague promises to this campaign. I'm bringing a career's worth of expertise, and I'm ready to put it to work for this city.
devyanisingh.com www.devyanisingh.com