Along with appointing a new executive director, the Squamish Community Housing Society (SCHS) has big aims over the next year to tackle unaffordable housing.
The Squamish Chief met with the new executive director, Sarah Ellis, and two other board members, Jenna Stoner and Kirby Brown, to discuss some of the goals ahead for SCHS.
“In the next 12 months, our focus is going to be on building partnerships, working with senior levels of government, to get funding to build new affordable housing in Squamish,” said Ellis.
“That's our top priority.”
Ellis, who previously spent years working as a housing planner for the City of Vancouver, explained that federal, provincial, municipal and First Nations governments are all recognizing the housing needs. As such, Ellis said SCHS plans to work with those groups and others to bring critical resources to Squamish.
For example, Ellis said another goal is to acquire and stabilize existing housing, so they are looking to qualify for a provincial fund that could help them take on an existing housing complex and thus keep rental prices lower.
A third goal identified for the upcoming year is to be able to co-ordinate access to existing housing.
“One of our key actions is going to be creating a new online housing portal to help folks and community access all of the different housing opportunities that are either coming or existing,” Ellis said, which would be accessed through housingsquamish.ca when launched.
Why the focus on affordable rentals and what’s happening already?
The entry point to affordable housing for the housing society is focused on affordable rentals. But how did they decide to address that area?
Stoner and Ellis referenced data from the District of Squamish Housing Report that identified 57% of the housing units still needed in Squamish over the next eight years were affordably priced units for people and families with annual incomes of $70,000 or more.
“Those are folks who are living in community right now who are living in housing that's either unaffordable to them or that's unsuitable to their needs,” said Ellis.
Stoner explained that one way affordable rentals are currently being delivered to the community is through the District of Squamish’s community amenity contribution (CAC) policy, which sees developers agree to a certain percentage of units being secured at an affordable rate. The current policy for most projects with more than 50 units is dedicating 10% as affordable housing.
Stoner said there are currently about 250 of these units in the works for Squamish, a vast majority of which will be developer owned.
“But there is a requirement that [developers], at least as a first point, use the co-ordinated waitlist that will be provided by the housing society” to tenant the units, said Stoner.
However, more society owned units could be coming after a recent CAC policy review.
The policy was discussed at length at council’s Oct. 10 committee of the whole meeting. The updated policy was unanimously approved by council with a small amendment to the delivery of cash-in-lieu of CACs. The policy still needs to be adopted.
Proposed was a bump to 15% of affordable units in apartment developments with 50 or more units or the donation of 5% of units to the housing society. 30-plus townhome developments or 20-plus single detached and multiplex subdivision developments were proposed for a 5% of units to be donated to housing society.
Although the focus in the coming year is on affordable rental units, Brown reiterated that there’s a full spectrum of needs the society is eventually looking to build from subsidized housing to potentially market buy-in.
“Housing is an ecosystem, there’s no bad part of it,” Brown said, who previously served on the Whistler Housing Authority board and is currently on the Hiy̓ám̓ ta Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Housing Society board.
“You need it all,” Brown continued, “because the community is composed of people who have very different needs.”
SCHS has a positive outlook, despite challenges
Despite what could be described as a daunting task ahead, Ellis had a positive outlook on housing in Squamish.
“I wake up every morning fired up to do this job,” she said. “I'm also under no illusion that this is going to be easy or even fast … but we're making really good progress.”
Looking ahead, Brown admitted there were going to be “tougher” conversations about how to densify areas of Squamish but he was confident in the team as he described the board as having “no naiveté.”
“We understand the hill that needs to be climbed,” he said.
There continues to be ways for Squamish residents to get involved in the society too.
As it stands, there are two director occupancies on the SCHS board. For one role, they are looking for someone with experience in “support services or the housing or legal sector” such as those with experience as a housing planner, mortgage broker, banking professional, property manager or legal professional.
The second role they are looking for someone who currently occupies an affordable housing unit with Squamish. Lastly, the society continues to collect data about housing needs in the community through an online Word on Housing survey, which is open until Dec. 1.
Find out more information at housingsquamish.ca.
