BC looking to Vienna and Singapore for public housing models: Minister

BC government is looking to Vienna and Singapore for public housing models, says Minister of Housing

Downtown Vancouver skyline with construction cranes. (Shutterstock)

The last few months in British Columbia have been highly eventful in the topical realm of housing affordability and homelessness, with the provincial government taking the first steps on its new ambitious multi-faceted housing affordability and supply strategy.

It is a $4-billion, multi-year strategy to invest in tens of thousands of new homes across the housing continuum of social and supportive housing, below-market rental housing, market rental housing, and purpose-built student housing to reduce pressure on the rental market.

Past governments since the 2010s focused mainly on implementing interventionist measures to regulate supply, and while the new strategy does include some more interventionist measures — specifically with the forthcoming introduction of a new flipping tax and more actions to address criminal activity in real estate — it aims to rally on supply to an extent never before seen in decades.

Bringing in new supply is now the overwhelming focus under the leadership of Premier David Eby, who has created a new Ministry dedicated to tackling housing, with a Minister assigned to this sole portfolio.

BC Minister of Housing Ravi Kahlon (Ravi Kahlon)

While the provincial government is making major public investments into affordable housing, it also needs municipal governments to approve and expedite housing built by the private and not-for-profit sectors, with governments coming in to fill the cracks and provide further support for further affordability and project feasibility, such as a funding partner or providing low-cost construction financing.

The province has already identified at least two broad strategies that override traditional municipal authority.

For one, single-family zoning in BC as we know it will come to an end, with the provincial government expected to introduce legislation later this year to allow up to four units on a single lot.

Secondly, on Wednesday, May 31, the provincial government is expected to announce the first 10 municipal governments that will be subject to the new Housing Supply Act. Jurisdictions that have capacity to grow and/or are falling behind in meeting housing needs in their community will be required to meet new housing supply quotas.

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Daily Hive Urbanized recently interviewed BC Minister of Housing Ravi Kahlon, just before his bombshell press conference to announce the findings of the forensic investigation into conflict of interest and mismanagement issues at crown corporation BC Housing and not-for-profit housing provider Atira Women’s Resource Society.

For brevity, this is an edited and condensed version of the questions and answers:

Is there any possibility governments could come in as the operator of affordable housing instead of using non-profit organizations as the middle man?

Not-for-profit organizations generally do a good job. It is hard work. People with complex needs, people who can be in very good condition one day and a few days later be very challenged… people on the ground tell me it’s not that people are hard to house, but they can be horrible housing. A lot of our not-for-profits are dealing with all these challenges all at once.

We’re going to continue to find ways to support them and build their capacities because they play a very important role where the private sector just can’t help us on this.

Vancouver City Council recently rejected City staff’s proposed framework of establishing a “Pace of Change” policy for regulating new building development proposals within the Broadway Plan area. What is your position on the rejection of this slowdown strategy to address concerns it could impact existing renters living in older, affordable units?

I’m pleased Vancouver City Council and Mayor made the right decision. When we get to a point where we already made a decision on an area plan, and we’re in a housing crisis, it’s go-time.

Vancouver right now has one of the best rental protection plans for the Broadway Corridor that any other area I’ve seen in North America. If a not-for-profit or private sector builder is ready to go with a project, we need them to proceed because we need this housing as soon as possible, not just in Vancouver but in communities across the province.

When Premier David Eby was running for the BC NDP party leadership race last fall, he mentioned the idea of launching BC’s very own public housing system. We saw some details in the recent provincial budget on BC Builds, but are you able to further elaborate on what it could look like?

The concept of BC Builds, which we will be providing more information later in the year, is very much aligned with what we see in other jurisdictions. We’re looking at places like Vienna and Singapore as examples, where social housing isn’t just for low-income people. The idea of social housing is housing for the middle class, as well as people who are lower income, where you build more healthy and wholesome communities. That is what BC Builds will be.

We are in the process right now of creating an inventory of province-owned, municipal-owned, school board-owned, and other government-owned land so that we can do an assessment of where the ideal opportunities are to build housing for the middle class and low-income earners.

We think that’s the way of the future to ensure that young people can get an opportunity to stay in our communities.

My biggest worry comes from hearing from young people who tell me they can’t afford to stay here. They want to make sure they raise their kids in the same community they grey up in, but they don’t see the same opportunity right now.

The days of selling our lands at cheap costs to private developers, hoping that one day they’ll build housing, is gone, and I hope it never comes back.

The province recently introduced Bill 26 as a measure to circumvent the court challenge by a Kitsilano residents advocacy group to stall BC Housing’s new affordable housing project next to SkyTrain’s future Arbutus Station. What are your thoughts on those who say this is too much of a heavy-handed approach? Can this legislation be used for other projects in the future?

We have people who are sleeping in RVs, tentsm and parks. In fact, a few blocks from that Arbutus site, there are people living in Vanier Park who can’t find affordable housing and are struggling and need supports.

Here we have a project that we spent two years trying to get an approval, six days of public hearings, and long hours of deliberation from City Council, and only then did we finally got approval. And now we’re dealing with the courts because they’re saying we haven’t consulted enough.

At some point, we’ve got to get on with it and build the housing we need because we’re in a housing crisis.

The previous City Council approved that project, and we have a current City Council that fully understands we’re in a housing crisis and have challenges ahead of us.

We can now go ahead and proceed with the project, and meet the timelines to get the housing built. And yes, we do have Bill 26 as an option for future projects.

We’ve got to get to the point where we get to “Yes” on these projects. There’s a lot of reasons to say no, and some are very good reasons, but we need to find ways to mitigate those challenges and impacts, and get to a point where we’re actually approving projects. It’s just happening way too slow. We want to make sure all projects move faster in this province.

Some of the concerns raised by local residents against BC Housing’s Arbutus project comes from what they see at some other existing supportive housing sites, where there are operational issues with the building that remain unaddressed by the not-for-profit operator. What are your thoughts on their concerns

We will have 24/7 staff on-site. We will work with the community often. For these types of projects, we often setup community advisory groups to work with local residents to make sure that any issues that arise can be addressed.

At this site, it does have some supportive housing units, but many of the units here are also affordable housing. It’s not just people with additional needs.

Lately, there has been some discussion on the “right” socioeconomic mix of housing in the Downtown Eastside, particularly the challenges of buildings largely filled with people with very deep needs. Are you able to weigh in on what is considered a healthy mix in general and in the context of the Downtown Eastside?

With the housing crisis that we have and global inflation, it’s putting a lot of challenges on people. What we do is we ensure people get into shelters where we do assessments to see what kind of housing they need.

Sometimes it’s supportive housing, sometimes it’s complex care, and sometimes people just need rental supplements to get into private market rental. That’s the assessment that we do with everyone.

Now if we have an abundance for housing, then we’d have more flexibility to move people. But right now what we have setup that coordinates folks from not-for-profits, healthcare, and BC Housing, and they try to find a place for these individuals.

We’re actually finding some success to ensure all sites have a balance. Some people have more challenging needs, while others have less needs so that everybody is set up for success and the community is well supported.

The City of Vancouver’s leadership says it currently has 25% of Metro Vancouver’s overall population, but is the location of 75% of the region’s shelter spaces, 77% of the region’s supportive housing units, and 50% of the region’s social housing. How do you plan on getting the rest of Metro Vancouver and the province to catch up on supports for people in need so that the onus isn’t just on Vancouver? Is there a strategy to have people stay in their own community to get the help they need?

Vancouver, given its history and importance to the province, will always play an important role when it comes to building affordable housing, and making sure all communities are supported. That’s just part of the DNA of the province.

I share the similar concerns as the Mayor of Vancouver in that I believe all of our communities have a role to play to address our housing crisis.

When we introduce the Housing Supply Act this spring, we’re going to be announcing eight to 10 communities. They must achieve a certain level of housing when it comes to units, but also the amount of bedrooms in those units, and ensuring we’re building the right amount of affordable housing and supportive housing because we can’t leave it to certain communities to carry the load.

This is the responsibility of the entire region. The mayors of Metro Vancouver all understand they have a role to play. The question for now is how they play that role.

The province and the City of Vancouver have put a considerable amount of resources into ending the Hastings encampment, and this includes ongoing efforts to transition individuals to temporary arrangements and then permanent housing. But what’s the strategy of ensuring there isn’t another repeat of such a critical mass encampment in a year from now or even later this year? Over the last few years, we’ve cycled through encampments at Oppenheimer Park, Crab Park, Strathcona Park, and now Crab Park again. Has this cycle finally come to an end?

Quite frankly, we’re two decades of underinvestment in housing. The chickens have come home to roost.

What we need to do is while we’re building the temporary modular housing, renovating SROs, and buying motels, we need to ensure all the new permanent housing that we’re funding, which is in the thousands of units in Vancouver, are approved and built quickly. Modulars and SROs, especially, are temporary by nature.

We need to get people into more stable housing, and we need to continue to build it because the demand will go up from the growing population. We’re moving a lot of people from shelters into new units, and our goal is to build more stable housing over time.

Can you provide an update on the Crab Park encampment?

The Park Board, City, and First Nations elders are working to make the community and people in the park are safe. We continue to reach out to people there to offer them shelter spaces because we know shelter spaces are safer than the encampments.

Once our new housing starts come online, we’ll work with those in Crab Park to get them into more stable housing.

We have 95 units in Vancouver that just got occupancy permits, and we’re now working to move people from shelters into it. We have another 100 units coming, another 100 units after that, and we bought Chalmers Lodge that’ll be ready late summer after renovations. Key to that is the longer term housing which is under development so that we can keep people housed permanently.

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