Affordable housing complex opens in Vernon

“[The units] are all kind of unique and are not exactly the same [layout], and we get to house a community of diverse people,” Margaret Penner, Chair of the Okanagan Village Housing Society, told Vernon Matters, adding they don’t have a target demographic for this project.

“There are agencies in town that look after specifically single moms coming from abusive situations or Indigenous people or people with mental illnesses. Our mandate is completely diverse, it’s strictly income. So you can get someone who’s changing your tires, or waiting tables, or daycare workers. There’s a lot of people in this town that qualify as low to middle income.”

The one-bedroom rates are $920, rent for a two-bedroom unit is $1,230, and the three-bedroom rental rates are $1,350, but half of the units are also “rent geared to income,” meaning the eligible tenants will only be charged a third of their monthly wages.

Five of the units have already been filled and Penner said they are wading through numerous applications to fill the remaining spaces May 1, which shows a need for these sorts of projects in Vernon.

“It’s 13 people that are not going to be without a home, maybe some came out of hotels, maybe some have come from basement suites that were inadequate or housing that was inadequate and now they have a new, safe, affordable home,” Penner said.

Mayor Victor Cumming, who attended the ribbon cutting, echoed the sentiment that Vernon needs more low-cost housing.

“This is a brand new one that will fit that. This will be taken up by people who work here, they’re part of the Vernon community, and they just need housing and they need housing they can afford,” Cumming told Vernon Matters.

“What this does is create a kind of model for what we need to do, and if we had 300 instead of 13, I’d be that much happier. So the gap is large but this is the kind of model that shows it can be done.”

Penner noted it “takes a village” as there were partnerships involved in making this project possible.

“The city has leased us the land for 35 years for $1 year, providing that our mandate remains for affordable housing and below market housing, which is our vision and our mission,” Penner explained.

The province provided the society with a loan to help offset the mortgage. That loan has a provision that will reduce the fee over time as long as they continue to work on providing affordable housing. The rent from the units will be used to pay off the mortgage.

Now that the project in Okanagan Landing is complete and people are moving in, Penner and the society are going to be looking for a location for their next project, as she said securing land for a reasonable price is the most difficult aspect.

“We’re going to put all our feelers out, and we’ve got a few tentative ones of more land, and then we’ll put a project together for that piece of land whether it be small, maybe an old house from the 50s or 60s that came with a half acre, or whether it might be a three lot parcel or something, we’ll work with whatever we can,” Penner told Vernon Matters.

“Give us land and we’ll collaborate and put it together and collaborate. We’ve got a good relationship with B.C. Housing, we’ve got a good relationship with our credit unions and banks and lenders, we’ve got builders on our board that are experts. So we’ll put it together if we can get the land.”

by Liam Verster

Affordable housing complex opens in Vernon

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