Today, former MP Garth Turner asked a provocative question on his popular blog.

Citing in Ispos Reid poll, he noted that 90 percent of Torontonians said that it was getting more difficult to live in Canada's largest city.

Nearly 40 percent reported that they're thinking of moving because of the cost of living.

"Now just imagine what the results would be for poor Vancouver, where the average SFD [single-family dwelling] is now $1.26 million as opposed to a mere $952,000 in T.O., and people earn a lot less," Turner wrote.

Despite the angst in Vancouver over the housing crisis, we haven't heard much on this subject yet from NPA mayoral candidate Kirk LaPointe.

He issued a vague statement promising that an NPA-led council would invest in affordable housing for seniors. LaPointe said nothing about housing in his major address to the NPA membership. And he issued a few bromides on his blog after a tour of the Downtown Eastside.

The Greens and the Coalition of Progressive Electors, on the other hand, have each outlined specific policies on their websites.

The Greens' plan

The Greens are promising to adopt "the standard definition of affordability" that spending on shelter not exceed more than 30 percent of household income.

In city-subsidized projects, affordable rental rates would be linked to median renters' incomes. Penalties, according to the Greens, would be assessed if rents exceeded that threshold in Rental 100 and other city-subsidized developments.

In addition, the Greens say they'll protect apartment tenants from renovictions by strengthening the rate-of-change bylaw so all residents "have housing relocation plans for comparable or better accommodation at a comparable or lower rent before the building or demolition permit is issued".

That's not all. The Greens intend to place an "annual limit" on demolitions of apartment buildings and exempt purpose-built rental buildings from area-wide upzoning and interim area-wide upzoning.

The Greens promise to "quickly" resolve land-lease issues for co-ops at Southwest False Creek. The party has also pledged to exact an employee-housing levy on new commercial developments, investigate how global capital is influencing the housing market, and come up with a "reliable method to identify seasonally occupied or vacant housing. This would be the precursor to establishing policies to encourage full occupancy, possibly through the imposition of a vacant-housing levy.

Read the full Vancouver Greens' housing platform here.

COPE's plan

COPE has promised on its website to invoke a "state of emergency" on its first day in office to address housing affordability. It also states that it will ban corporate donations to political parties (though it's questionable whether this can be achieved without a provincial amendment to the Vancouver Charter) to curb the influence of real-estate corporations.

COPE's plan calls for the replacement of 4,000 low-income Downtown Eastside hotel rooms with "quality social housing" over 10 years. The left-wing party also intends on imposing an "immediate moratorium" on condo development in the Downtown Eastside to "stop gentrification and displacement".

"COPE will increase rental-housing construction enough to ensure that the residential rental vacancy rate is at least 2% by 2018, and the median real rent paid by tenant households is lower in 2018 than in 2014," the party promises.

In addition, it says it will "apply strict rent controls to all new large housing developments, using the City's zoning and housing agreement powers".

A municipal rent-control bylaw would bring down rents, COPE claims, so it would create an elected rent-control board with tenant representation. It would be independent of the real-estate industry.

"COPE will work with other municipalities to advocate that the provincial government tie rent increases to the rental unit, not to the tenancy, and implement a province-wide rent-freeze."

There's more. COPE promises a licensing registry for landowner and landlords. This registry would list all units, rents, and rent increases, as well as track all health, safety, maintenance, and tenant disputes.

The money would come from licensing fees, COPE states. If the party is elected, it would also create a squatters' rights bylaw, support and fund tenant unions, and create a rental-housing ombudsperson.

Read COPE's full housing platform here.