Conditional funding has been approved for a trio of affordable housing projects in the city, which the mayor says will help ensure sufficient housing in Lethbridge.
According to Mayor Blaine Hyggen, rental prices in Lethbridge are starting to creep above rental prices in Edmonton and part of the reason for that is because of the demand for housing in the community. Hyggen explains to help combat this the amount of available housing needs to meet the demand, which in the community right now there is a lack of.
“So this will just be able to give yet additional housing, additional doors within our community and so it’s something that everybody is struggling with,” Hyggen says. “Across Canada, housing is a struggle for anyone and so it’s important that we’re doing our part.”
The recommended funding breakdown includes $500,000 to MyCity Care for a 40-unit build that will include 12 affordable units, $210,000 to SettleEase Canada Foundation for a 16-unit project with 14 affordable and $1.1 million to the Green Acres Foundation for a 56-unit project that will all be affordable housing; all three projects are targeted towards a specific group demographic including women, children, families and vulnerable individuals, new immigrants with short-tenure housing, and seniors.
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Housing Solutions Coordinator Matthew Pitcher says all of these builds are directed towards addressing a need seen in the city.
“We desperately need rental market units and the people that are most adversely impacted by rising rental costs are those that are in need of that affordable housing and so all of these projects have units that are committed to affordability criteria in alignment with city definitions.
We’re just really excited that those units would be created assuming obviously that everything along the way goes as we plan,” Pitcher says.
The conditional funding from the city is contingent on the organization securing the remaining funding balance for the project by June 30th of next year, along with getting provincial or federal funding sources equal to or more than the city’s contribution and having a development permit for the project.
Pitcher says the MyCity Care is already addressing the rezoning condition with a request going before council the same day as the conditional funding approval.
“So still hoops to jump through and obviously that’s a difficult project to undertake but we’re one step well underway and the municipal funding request is typically that first funding request anyways.”
The funding comes from the city’s Affordable and Social Housing Capital Fund and prioritizes applications deemed most ‘shovel-ready’.’
