As Vancouver's 600th modular home fills up, city looks for next 600
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This week marks a milestone for Vancouver's pre-fabricated homes, as residents move into the final of 10 sites, totalling 606 units, hitting the target set out at the program's launch in September 2017. And while those tenants settle into their new homes, city staff are currently assessing possible sites for the next 600 modular homes. There's little question the demand is there, in a city that counted 2,181 "residents facing homelessness" last year.
But even if the city figures out where to put those homes, the question remains of how to fund them.
Vancouver's initial round of 600 units (after an earlier pilot project) received contributions from three levels of government.
The B.C. NDP launched the program with an investment that ended up costing $80 million, and will provide another $11.4 million of operating funding this year. The 2019 provincial budget, released last month, included another $76 million for 200 more modular homes, but it's not clear where in the province those homes will be built.
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The federal government's contribution to those first 600 units, announced last month in the days after The Globe and Mail broke the story of the SNC-Lavalin scandal still engulfing the federal Liberals,
was $1.5 million. The comparatively small size of the feds' contribution wasn't lost on some of those now hoping for more support from Ottawa.
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Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart, who spent seven years in Ottawa as an NDP MP before his election last year as mayor, seems to want to pressure the federal Liberals during this election year to put their money where their mouths are on housing. Lately, when Stewart gets near a microphone, he keeps bringing up the subject.
Last month, in a one-on-one interview shortly before the B.C. 2019 budget was delivered, Stewart threw the focus to Ottawa, calling the recently announced $1.5-million contribution as "pretty low."
"The million-and-a-half bucks they gave was for the 600 units we've already constructed," he said. "Now, I would say: 'Help us bring another 600 (units), we'll take whatever you can give us in terms of modular.' "
At a news conference the following week, Stewart said: "The province has come through in a big way, with the first 600 units, so we hope they'll continue that trend. At the federal level, there is lots of room for them to help. We have heard lots of good things, and we constantly hear about the (National Housing Strategy's) $40 billion over 10 years, but not a lot of that money is landing on the ground."
And the next day, at city council, Stewart stepped it up another notch, saying senior governments were
"making lots of noise (about housing,) but really not delivering much money."
City Coun. Jean Swanson, who introduced a motion late last year calling for another 600 modular homes, was a bit more blunt, as is her way.
In Swanson's assessment, the federal government's funding support for housing so far has been "a joke."
"It would be funny," Swanson said last month, "if it weren't so tragic."
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