The Editor,
Re: "Offshore dollars pose possible cause to poverty rates," Letters, Nov. 30, "Face it folks, poverty lives here," Letters, Dec. 9.
It's interesting reading both Julie Halfnight's and De Whalen's letters with regards to Statistic Canada and their report on child poverty.
I have to agree with both of them. The statistics are misleading and, yes, there is poverty in Richmond.
I recall the last federal election giving out details from the Census data in Richmond and it stated the annual family income in Richmond was $67,627 per year ($53,489 per household) and a single detached house was in the $650,000 average range.
This data was collected when we had a hot economy. We all know salaries haven't really gone up much in the last six years, but real estate certainly has.
That $67,627 per year is family income, which often means two working parents and, in this day and age, probably one or two grownup employed children still living at home.
The relationship between these two statistics simply does not add up, especially when you consider the average detached house in Richmond is now in the $900,000 range.
What bank lends out $700,000$800,000 mortgages on a $67,000 average family salary?
Even with some misleading statistics that don't tell every individual's story, it seems quite clear there is a lot of undeclared income and imported offshore wealth to compensate for this huge gap.
Richmond's wealth is not made up of average families working nine to five.
When my family moved to Richmond in 1978, an average fiveyear-old house was $80,000 and the average family income was, say, $15,000 per year.
The average house was 5.3 times the average salary. In 2011, that same house would list for $1 million.
For a family to have the same purchasing power in the real estate market today, they would have to earn $188,679.00 per year.
Of course that same house is now 40 years old, has shag carpeting and a harvest-gold coloured bathroom!
I believe this trend has created a large underclass in the community that does require resources such as the food bank, many that never considered themselves as "poor."
I graduated 20 years ago from Richmond high school and find I am one of the very few who still live in Richmond.
Most of my graduating class simply can't afford to live and raise a family in the city where they grew up and have long since packed up and left for Langley, the Fraser Valley and the Okanagan.
Ken Moffatt
Richmond
