Why are brand new affordable housing units sitting empty in Lynn Valley? Kiwanis’s Lynn Woods project was conceived of as seniors' housing but the BC Housing dollars that helped fund it come with income criteria better matched with people still in the workforce.
The target demographic and the eligibility rules seem almost fundamentally incompatible.
The story has touched off a lot of frustrations – from seniors who are desperate for better housing but don’t meet income requirements and from people who earn enough to be eligible, but fall outside the age requirements. The upshot is publicly funded rooms sitting empty in a housing crisis.
The District of North Vancouver will vote in September on whether to lower the age of people allowed to live in the building, from 65 to 55. Of course, lowering the age will help get those rooms filled, which is good. But we are left with questions. If the new residents leave the workforce or their income drops below the threshold, will they be evicted back out into a hostile rental market? That’s hardly a stable housing solution.
Maybe Kiwanis never should have sought funding for a seniors project that came with BC Housing’s eligibility criteria. It has not been answered to our satisfaction why BC Housing approved the $10.6-million grant request – mostly because BC Housing did not provide a meaningful response to our request for comment at all.
In either case, this matter now requires the attention of the housing minister – not to assign blame, which we have no interest in, but to get the matter rectified and to ensure it does not happen again.
An affordable home is a terrible thing to waste.
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