Affordable housing builds underway in PA, but nothing planned beyond

The province has budgeted $34.4 million for the Saskatchewan Rental Housing Supplement for 2013-14. The supplement is expected to go to 11,000 households.

The province has already completed and opened 188 affordable housing units in the city, and 78 construction projects are currently underway.

On Feb. 25, the ground was broken on one such construction project — a new two storey four-plex on 15th Street West. The affordable housing unit will be built by PA Community Housing, with a $340,000 in funding assistance from the Saskatchewan Housing Corporation, an agency of the Government of Saskatchewan.

Gross said this project will add to the inventory of affordable housing in the city, as opposed to a portfolio renewal initiative. The latter would be upgrade the inventory of available housing, replacing already existing homes.

Four families will be moving into the new housing available, and off of the affordable housing waiting list.

The project comes via the Summit Action Fund, and the government seeks proposals to develop affordable housing from groups within the community.

Thirty additional units are under construction, but are a part of the province’s portfolio renewal efforts.

Gross re-iterated that Prince Albert is experiencing a 10 per cent vacancy rate, and the province provides a rental supplement to help residents pay for low-income housing.

“At this point, we have various initiatives that are available, we don’t have any specific other projects in the planning at this point in time,” Gross said.

He said the province does have proposal call processes, and “as time progresses, we’ll have other proposal call processes available. But right now, we don’t have other projects on the books.”

And this disappoints the opposition NDP.

“Housing continues, especially affordable housing, continues to be a major issue that people raise whenever we travel across the province. And when we’ve seen the cost of housing go, you know, go up and up and up, and we’ve just got to do more as a government,” housing critic David Forbes said.

He added that Prince Albert has a unique circumstance with its high vacancy rate – and it’s only one measure.

“It doesn’t measure the quality of housing, and it doesn’t measure the affordability of housing. And so this is why the government really needs to do more, and we’ll be looking for that in the provincial budget, and holding them to account at that time.”

As for the rental housing supplement program, he said they have heard complaints about it. The health and safety self-assessment is one of the sources of frustration – if a suite doesn’t pass a test, then the renter won’t receive the supplement.

As well, recipients of the supplement have reported difficulties getting through on the call in line, Forbes added. The supplement recipients have to call in every three months. “But they find that it takes weeks to get through on the phone line, and this is often resulting in people’s benefits being cancelled, and then it takes another six weeks to get their supplement going again, and so, this is a real problem.”

The NDP plans to call on the government to look at ways to improve the way the rental supplement is delivered, and to convey that there is a real need to assist landlords with repairs to their properties.

“I think we need to step up in making sure that there are new builds, particularly for those to make sure that there’s affordable rental for people,” he said, and added the rising cost of the rental supplement program should be going towards new builds.

Affordable housing built by the government is a way of keeping an eye on the marketplace, Forbes said.

“The government has a role to be a part of the housing continuum, and I think it serves an important role to be a partner, to know what’s happening in the housing marketplace.”

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames

by paNOW

Affordable housing builds underway in PA, but nothing planned beyond

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