Image Credit: CFJC News

By Amandalina Letterio

KAMLOOPS

Local company gets $200,000 to research the creation of affordable housing in Kamloops

Dec 4, 2021 | 10:47 AM

KAMLOOPS — The Government of Canada is providing funding to a Kamloops affordable housing project.

Ahmed Hussen, Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion and Minister Responsible for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), announced that close to $3.3 million in funding will be provided to 16 Canadian organizations under the National Housing Strategy (NHS) Demonstrations Initiative.

The 16 organizations will each receive funding from $100,000 to $250,000. Two organizations on the list are in British Columbia: Urban Matters in Kamloops and Vancouver Aboriginal Community Policing Centre in Vancouver.

Urban Matters works with governments, non-profit organizations, First Nations, social entrepreneurs, and socially conscious business leaders to identify, introduce, and scale innovations that address complex social issues.

Specifically, it works in areas that fall within the Social Determinants of Community Health framework.

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The organization will be receiving $208,860.00 from the federal government for its efforts.

“It will be used to identify how a community land trust in Kamloops could help facilitate the creation of new housing in the community,” said Jen Casorso, Social Health and Well-Being Lead at Urban Matters.

Community land trusts (CLT) are community led, non-profit organizations which acquire and hold land in the interest of their local community, as defined by the Canadian Network of Community Land Trusts.

CLTs operate on a variety of scales choosing to represent either neighbourhoods, cities, or regions. They are long-term stewards of affordability, which work to ensure perpetually affordable housing, and to secure space for high social-benefit non-profit enterprises, the Canadian Network of Community Land Trusts website states.

“We are exploring the structure of a community land trust and how to secure and hold lands for the purpose of increasing the availability of affordable housing in the community,” Casorso continued.

Casorso says Urban Matters recognized that the ongoing housing challenges in the Kamloops community are ‘not getting better.’

“More and more middle to low-income earners are being pushed out of affordable, safe, and secure housing options,” she explained.

Casorso says Urban Matters knows there have been several investments in the community related to supportive housing, in addition to the growth of market housing.

“We are wanting to create an option that results in the future creation of housing to serve the community in the middle,” she said.

The government says solutions from this call will support a culture of innovation by fostering partnerships, replication, and scaling, as well as creating and disseminating real-world data for evidence-based decision-making.