If you’re looking to rent on a limited budget, the Skills Centre of Greater Trail has launched a new resource to help.
“Have you wondered where and how to start looking?” asks Morag Carter, executive director. “If so, you’re not alone.”
Facilitated by the Skills Centre, nonprofit housing providers have come together to create an online central hub that lists information on nonprofit- owned rental options in the region.
To have a look, visit: www.findaffordablehousing.ca.
The website grew out of the Thriving for All: Lower Columbia Poverty Reduction Plan, which was released in 2017.
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One of the five key pillars of the plan is to improve access to affordable housing with the goal of not only increasing the supply of affordable housing in the region, but also making information about those housing options more accessible.
“The website is urgently needed,” said Carter. “Through our clients and community partners, we’ve been hearing about how hard it is to find affordable rental housing in the region. The Skills Centre just completed an updated analysis of the living wage for region and discovered it has gone up 62 cents to $18.83/hour and one of the main reasons for the increase is the cost and availability of rental housing in our region.”
The new website is just one of several initiatives being worked on by the Skills Centre and other community partners to address housing needs and poverty in the Lower Columbia, with funding support from Columbia Basin Trust.
Bringing the housing providers together to work on the website has resulted in a positive exchange of information and ideas amongst the housing providers who are typically groups of dedicated volunteers focused on the housing owned by their respective organizations.
In a recent survey of advertised rental prices commissioned by the Attainable Housing Committee of the Lower Columbia Community Development Team Society (LCCDTS), the committee found that the cost of rental housing has increased by 10 to 15 per cent over the same time last year.
“With both provincial and federal governments investing heavily in affordable housing across the country, further complemented locally by the Columbia Basin Trust, we’re really excited about the opportunities to develop more units of affordable housing in the region,” says chair Jan Morton.
“With a safe, affordable place to live, it is a lot easier for lower income people to begin finding pathways out of poverty.”
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