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When you choose to hold a city-led, invite-only housing conference in a municipality mired in an affordability crisis you can expect to take a few licks.

For the City of Vancouver, those came early Thursday when protesters belonging to a group called the Alliance Against Displacement stormed the stage at its Re:Address conference.

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“Tax the rich. House the poor. Social housing now,” the dozen-or-so anti-poverty advocates chanted as they rushed the podium.

Mayor Gregor Robertson, who had been moderating a panel of housing experts from Vienna, San Francisco, New York and Toronto, stepped aside as security personnel grappled with the protesters and forcefully led one woman out of the room.

Then came a few unexpected twists.

Rather than dismissing the anti-poverty protesters with jeers, attendees in the audience greeted them with scattered applause, one of which came in reaction to the following decree: “The problem is capital investment itself in the form of private property. We demand homes — a shelter from the loss (to) capital investment.”