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Squamish grapples with affordable housing

Policy being developed for low-income demographic, but housing homeless also a problem
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Building policy The District of Squamish is examining how to establish a housing authority and address affordable housing issues. Photo by Maureen Provencal.

Squamish’s Affordable Housing Policy came a little closer to fruition last week, as the district toyed with the idea of establishing a housing authority similar to entities in Whistler and other jurisdictions across the Lower Mainland.

The policy has been in the works for about two years, time spent struggling to establish a framework friendly to both developers and low-income renters. The debate now centres around three approaches: collecting cash contributions from developers, requiring a certain amount of low-income units to be built into each project, or a combination of the two.

“This is not a simple nut to crack,” said Cameron Chalmers, director of planning with the District of Squamish, during a mid-week strategy session in council chambers. “The development community is willing to participate in a solution for affordable housing, but they want to know how much it’s going to cost.”

In previous meetings, the Squamish Landowners Association positioned itself in favour of making cash contributions the district could put towards purchasing housing assets. Such an approach would allow all their units to fluctuate in price with the ebb and flow of the market while the district managed a tenant list with its own portfolio. In that case, cash would change hands only when units were sold on the open market.

That’s not good enough for Councillor Corrine Lonsdale.

“We need money,” she said. “We need money now. Where we sit in the realm of things, we’re not going to become more affordable in the future. We’re going to stay the same or magnify.”

Mayor Ian Sutherland agreed: “We aren’t going to get affordable housing by dealing with cash contributions. It’ll take longer, not faster. Doing this five years from now is not what we wanted to do when we started this process two years ago.”

Councillor Raj Kahlon, meanwhile, preferred to combine the two systems when it makes sense to do so. According to Kahlon, a cash contribution is the appropriate approach when it comes to ultra-high end residential developments not suitable to low-income tiers.

Still another issue is whether a semi-regulated housing market services renters, buyers or both.

“I have a philosophical problem with helping people purchase real estate and then they make a profit with tax payer dollars,” said Councillor Greg Gardner.

Gardner proposed a clause that allows the district to buy the property back at the original selling price, or else compel tenants to repay funds when their finances recover.

There’s also the so-called lottery effect, which left certain members of council uncomfortable. That concept breeds winners and losers, with some people finding themselves housed and happy, while others languish in more challenging scenarios.

“I sincerely think that this is a natural effect of interfering in a free market,” Chalmers replied, later adding that the district should soon start preparing an eligibility list.

In an earlier interview with Pique Newsmagazine , Sutherland said the policy is geared toward low-income demographics. For the moment, the hardcore homeless won’t find much relief in the framework.

“Now we’re working on a policy for people who are employed with fairly good jobs, but still can’t quite afford market rates.”

According to Dennis Bartlett, chairperson of the Squamish Helping Hands Society, what’s needed most to alleviate hardcore homelessness is supportive housing. The society runs a drop-in centre and emergency shelter behind the library in downtown Squamish.

“A lot of the clients who come in here are not well,” he said. “They’re addicted to drugs and alcohol. They need supportive housing — an apartment building with 10 or 20 or 30 units.”

Currently, the shelter has 10 beds available during extreme weather conditions, which are defined as continuous rain or temperatures below –4. Efforts are underway to bring the building in line with fire codes permitting 15 beds, and the district has made financial contributions to that end.

Just how many people are homeless in the Sea to Sky corridor is hard to determine. The shelter’s records show as many as 70 people dropping by in one day, many of them from Whistler.

About a year ago, the society conducted a survey of 50 homeless people in Squamish. Most were male, and most males were between the ages of 36 and 50. The majority were hidden homeless, usually couch surfers and the like. Still, a significant number lived outdoors. Twelve of the 50 respondents identified affordable housing as a desirable solution. According to Bartlett, those numbers haven’t changed much.

Meanwhile, the Whistler Housing Authority was established in 1997. A subsidiary of the Resort Municipality of Whistler, it attempts to find housing solutions for both renters and buyers in a housing environment that has been challenging for two decades.