By Chad Klassen

New BC Housing initiative hoping to help ‘the missing middle’ income-earners

Mar 5, 2019 | 3:37 PM

KAMLOOPS — The CEO of BC Housing was in Kamloops on Tuesday, getting a first-hand look at the progress of the 58 modular units on the verge of completion on Tranquille Road. 

Shayne Ramsay also spoke at a Kamloops Chamber of Commerce luncheon in the afternoon, outlining a new division of BC Housing called the Housing Hub, an initiative introduced last year to help middle-income earners struggling to attain home ownership. 

“Communities across British Columbia are faced with significant housing challenges. You’ve seen price increases in Kamloops, increases in homelessness,” noted Ramsay in an interview with CFJC Today. “One of the things the Hub has been formed to do is seek out those innovative partnerships with non-traditional partners to help create a range of affordable housing options for folks. We’re focused mostly in the Hub work on what people have called ‘the missing middle,’ the average income-earner.”

Ramsay says the program is for households earning between $50,000 and $100,000 a year. He notes the program relies on development expertise and partnerships to build more affordable units across B.C.

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“BC Housing can offer development expertise, low-cost financing, as well as access to land. Partners could be church groups, Indigenous groups, local governments, the private sector,” said Ramsay. “It really is coming together to bring the pieces that create affordability and making housing developments a reality.”