Election 2020 issues: Affordable Housing

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - One of the key issues in this election is British Columbia’s lack of affordable housing. Earlier this year, the NDP government stated that it built, or is building, 25,000 new affordable homes this year.

Some of these projects are in our region. Cortes Currents has posts about three projects, with120 homes, in Campbell River.

Kristi Schwanicke, Coordinator of the Campbell River & District Coalition to End Homelessness, says these projects will have a tremendous impact on the city’s homeless problem. 

In last week’s edition of Folk U, Manda Aufochs Gillespie reported:

“ … I also reached to get more specific stats from the BC Housing Research Centre on this very question and they told me get back in touch after the new cabinet has been formed. However the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing did issue this comment earlier, in preparation for this series.

“We know that for many years communities across the province, including small island communities, have been facing a shortage of affordable housing. Our Government is making the largest affordable housing investment in BC history, including thousands of mixed income affordable homes already underway around the province, with more to come.”

“Through the Building BC Community Housing Funds first intake, launched in 2018, we are currently working with non-profits to build new affordable rental homes on:

Cortes Island - 4 homes
Hornby Island - 26 homes
and Salt Spring Island - 80 homes.
“The province has also recently issued a second call for proposals under the community housing fund and communities are encouraged for more housing to meet their needs."
Photo credit: Construction site by Scott Lewis via Flickr (CC BY SA, 2.0 License)