A B.C. economist calls the announcement of nearly 2,000 new rental units in Metro Vancouver a “good start” but urges government to do more given the scale of need.
Marc Lee, senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, B.C. Office, said the new units announced Tuesday (March 19) by Premier David Eby won’t make much of a difference with almost three million living in Metro Vancouver.
“But every bit counts and these homes will be aimed at low-income households and are the type of non-market housing we’ve been pushing for to address housing affordability,” he said.
The new units will enter the market through 17 individual projects across Metro Vancouver receiving funding through the Community Housing Fund first launched in 2018. Government will announce additional projects on Vancouver Island as well in B.C.’s Interior and North this week.
“This latest round of funding will bring much-needed homes to every region of our province — from our fastest-growing cities to rural and remote areas — helping everyone find a decent home in the community they love,” Eby said in a release.
The $3.3 billion CHF aims to build more than 20,000 affordable rental homes for people with moderate and low incomes by 2031-32 in partnership with non-profits, co-operatives, Indigenous groups and municipal housing providers. Private companies can also participate if they apply on behalf of those groups.
When government first announced the CHF, it had a budget of $1.9 billion with the goal of building more than 14,000 rental homes. Government later upped its budget and goals in 2022.
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“The last round of CHF was heavily over-subscribed so the demand is there and the partnerships are there but the provincial money has been slow to come out…so the faster they can get to 20,000 the better,” Lee said. “That said, we estimate the province needs 25,000 of these types of non-market affordable units every year.”
Households must make between $84,780 to $134,140 to be eligible to rent in CHF projects.
Like any form of housing, it will cost money to build CHF units and that money needs to be recouped in rent over the lifetime of the building, Lee said.
“The benefit of non-market housing is that rents can be set below market, (so they) just need to cover a portion of construction costs plus operations and maintenance,” he said. “So these units are more likely to be insulated from rents being jacked up to market rate like you see for private rentals,” he said, adding that these units would be “amenable” to vacancy controls.
Other funding mechanisms include the loan-interest loan program offered the HousingHub and the recently announced BC Builds program.
Overall, Lee likes the CHF program, even if he has questions.
“So we need more, but B.C. is probably doing more with provincial funding than any other province,” he said.
“We need way more of that type of funding — scale it up,” he said. “There’s not a whole lot of transparency about these projects and funding mechanism,” he said, adding it would be a good program for the auditor-general to review.