The real world has a way of dealing with scarcity and desirability

Are you joking me? The entity of North America is under a slow burn towards the same unaffordability crisis we're facing here, with coastal cities like ours being affected most. The only cities that aren't affected are the ones with stagnating, lagging, or outright collapsing economies.

In the meantime, those with money can afford to live in the most desirable areas of the world.

I really have problem struggling with the idea that just because someone has a big chunk of cash in their hands, that they're somehow more 'deserving' of housing, no questions asked!

Considering they can move anywhere in the world due to their wealth. And thus, they don't necessarily need live in Vancouver, like people who earn income through employment need to.

Developers and investors are not building rental housing because the federal government long ago (in the 1970's) started removing incentives to do so. So people with money to invest that would have traditionally looked at building and operating rental housing aren't doing so today and really haven't for decades. This is a problem created by the federal government that it hasn't even started to reverse.

Why do they need further incentives to build, when they're already making out like bandits?

How is this not exploitation?

So it comes down to governments (largely local) to fund this housing you want - housing that is costly to build and won't even break even. So the taxpaying taxpayers are going to be subsidizing people who aren't contributing much to the tax base. This clearly doesn't make a compelling case to the city, nor should it.

I can see it from the perspective of the balance sheet, but I don't understand how one can not only realize this, but also lack even an inkling of human empathy to side with the developers?

So why should taxpaying Vancouverites be footing the bill for an infinite number of people from elsewhere who want to be subsidized to live in the most desirable place in Canada? My opinion: they shouldn't. If you want to exercise your UN right to housing, it should be where it is the most cost-effective for a country to provide it. And that absolutely isn't in Vancouver.

With people like you around, I am bewildered how we ever managed to get universal healthcare passed, considering the arguments you're using against affordable housing are precisely the arguments being used against affordable healthcare in the US.