Social agencies waiting for affordable housing approval

Aug 24, 2016 | 5:30 PM

KAMLOOPS — The homeless problem in Kamloops comes down to a lack of affordable housing.

Several agencies across the city are pressing various levels of government to get the funding needed to build these units.

The John Howard Society has 202 units across Kamloops, including a new townhouse complex on Columbia Street that’s helping reduce rent for some families, but is still out of reach for others.

More affordable units are ready to be built, but are just awaiting government support.

WATCH: Full report by Chad Klassen

It’s been nearly two months of living in the John Howard Society’s new Skyview Ridge townhouse complex for single mom Jo Styles.

Styles loves the openness of the kitchen and living room areas, as well as having three bedrooms for herself and her two daughters. 

Earlier this summer, she was forced out of her home and had five days to find another one for her family.

“It was really stressful,” says Styles. “There’s not a lot of affordable housing out there that’s suitable for small families.”

Styles, who works with Interior Health, pays $1,450 a month for 1,800 square feet of living at the new 15-unit complex on Columbia street — compared to the market value of $1,750. It is subsidized by the John Howard Society.

There are two floors with three bedrooms upstairs. It also has a nice backyard with a view. 

“I think it’s really reasonable for a single professional with a small family,” she says. “We did look at a lot of other places that were a lot older and smaller, with less bedrooms that were in the same price range.”

The townhouses, which opened in May, were financed by the John Howard Society in Kamloops with no government money.

“Skyview Ridge, our complex here, has been really a unique financial and philosophical partnership that we have with Van City Foundation, with the Van City Foundation providing our agency $450,000 in a grant, which has allowed us to offer these 15 units at 20% under market value,” says John Howard Society of Kamloops CEO Lindsay Lord.

But these aren’t true affordable housing units, which the John Howard Society says Kamloops is seriously lacking. The last affordable units built were at the Georgian Court on Fortune Drive in 2009. 

“We have a two and a half year wait list for all our housing, and with that, three years ago we purchased vacant land within the city and have been looking to move forward a new construction and development of the new affordable-housing complex,” says Lord. 

That complex would be on the corner of Fortune Drive and Oak Road, and could start tomorrow. But it requires cooperation from the federal and provincial governments, as well as the city.

“We’ve had initial discussions with the city. We’ve had the opportunity to propose this to the provincial government,” says Lord. “So really, what we’re waiting for is all three levels of government to come together, mobilize, and be able to bring forward an affordable-housing complex in the city.”

For single parents like Styles, she’s thankful for the opportunity. Without the John Howard Society, she says she’d be in a much dire situation.

“Probably be in that one-bedroom basement suite, and we’d all be pretty unhappy in each other’s space, and I would probably have had to move again and again and again until I found a place like this.”