Metro Vancouver affordable housing targets applauded by advocate

Metro Vancouver is ramping up its affordable housing and re-development figures, and its new targets are getting the thumbs up from a housing non-profit leader.

The Metro Vancouver Regional District said last week it plans to redevelop or build an additional 2,000 affordable housing units, on top of the 3,400 originally announced. This is part of a 10-year plan proposed in 2019 to have all these units ready by 2029.

B.C. Non-Profit Housing Association CEO Jill Atkey is applauding the district’s efforts, saying this is what she and other organizations have been looking for.

“They’re looking at all the assets in their portfolio, they’re seeing where there are new opportunities for development, and … looking at where there are opportunities for re-development in order to increase the overall number of homes within their portfolio, and those are largely affordable homes,” she explained in an interview with CityNews.

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She says renting is becoming more of a challenge than it’s ever been.

“So anyone living in a rental home, as we saw through the research, a 10 per cent chance of being evicted through no fault of their own from that housing, and as soon as they need to look for new housing in that market, they’re looking for smaller spaces, and they’re paying more for those smaller spaces,” Atkey said.

The UBC research she is referencing finds British Columbia was the eviction capital of Canada. The study found one-in-10 British Columbians reported being evicted in the past five years through no fault of their own. It also found that 85 per cent of evictions in the province were “no-fault evictions.”

“Traditionally, we think of evictions being caused by not paying your rent or not being a good tenant, but what the survey suggests is that tenant behaviour has very little to do with evictions in B.C. It’s more about the real estate market,” study co-author Dr. Craig Jones said in a statement.

Improving affordability in the long run

Atkey says while the new affordable housing plan’s effects won’t be immediate, it will improve the situation for low- and middle-income tenants over time.

“Over the medium and long term, as that supply comes online, more rental homes will be available for people seeking them, and over the long term, those homes, even though they’re not as affordable as we’d like to see them on day one, they will improve with affordability over time,” she said.

She says while she’s happy to see more financial investment in the issue coming from all levels of government, those investments are only sometimes coordinated.

“Sometimes, even still, we have non-profits or the (Metro Vancouver Housing Corporation) trying to coordinate three levels of government, and it’s … really challenging for those non-profits and government entities,” Atkey explained.

She adds when housing is managed through non-profits, it improves affordability in the long run. However, she notes that also hinges on continued investment.

“It’s the reason we need immediate and continued investments; it’s not going to get cheaper to build down the road, and when those investments are made into the community housing sector,
so non-profits, co-ops, (the) Metro Vancouver Housing Corporation, we can see that affordability protected in perpetuity,” Atkey said.

Editor’s note: This article has been corrected to show Metro Vancouver is building and redeveloping an additional 2,000 units, on top of the 3,400 initially announced.