This story was originally published in the Tri-City News Nov. 10, 2024
Frances Stone had never lived in a home that requires a security fob or a building that has an elevator.
Recently, she and her teenage daughter moved into a gleaming two-bedroom-plus-den condo in Anthem Properties’ new SOCO project just off North Road in Coquitlam.
How Stone got there is a study in transformational importance of securing safe, affordable housing.
Stone and her daughter were living in a walk-up rental building in uptown New Westminster when her landlord informed her she needed to move so a family member could move in.
Stone, an addictions counsellor, considered uprooting to Alberta where the provincial government is offering financial incentives to newcomers and rents are much cheaper.
Then a friend told her about a partnership between the Affordable Housing Society and Vancouver-based developer Anthem Properties that would make 18 rental homes in two new condo towers in Coquitlam available at rates geared to tenants’ income.
According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.(CMHC), that means a tenant pays 30 per cent or less of their gross income for rent.
Secure future
Stone said since moving into her new home in August, it’s the first time in her adult life she’s felt secure about her future.
So much so, Stone said she’s in the final stages of adopting a rescue dog to add to her family, something she’s wanted to do for years but failed to pursue because of her ongoing housing uncertainty.
That’s music to the ears of Stephen Bennett, CEO of the Affordable Housing Society.
He said being able to live in a safe, affordable home impacts every aspect of a person’s life.
“We don’t understand what a lack of choice means for people,” he said. “Because it’s so unaffordable out there, people are stuck.”
Best interests of the community
As municipalities across B.C. strive to attain housing targets recently mandated by the provincial government, they’re also wrestling with the challenge of ensuring those homes can be accessed by a broad spectrum of residents.
“We still have to predicate all of our decisions based on what is in the best interest of our community as a whole,” said Port Moody Mayor Meghan Lahti about the pressure to approve the construction of more homes.
Bennett said affordability can only be achieved when all levels of government work together to provide necessary funding because the cost of constructing homes has spiralled so high. He said without subsidies and grants from programs through agencies like BC Housing, BC Builds and CMHC, rent for apartments could be as much as $5,000 a month.
‘It can often be a tightrope’
Melissa Howey, Anthem’s vice-president of development, said companies like hers are feeling the pressure as well, as they look to deliver housing stock that meets communities’ needs.
“It is balancing the costs, the availability of density,” she said. “It can often be a tightrope to walk.”
Howey said inflationary pressures and constraints on capital are making that tightrope even tauter.
Inclusionary zoning policies and negotiations for additional density can help spur developers to find creative solutions that will allow them to include affordable units in their projects, but the long process to get approvals means the landscape is always shifting.
“Every municipality operates differently,” Howey said, adding the navigation of those varying procedures comes with more layers of expense.
“It can be a challenge to deliver the other forms of housing in a project at somewhat affordable rates.”
In fact, Anthem recently had to scale back a plan to designate half the 128 units in a rental building its seeking to build in Port Moody to just 13. The company said its original intent proved “financially unviable.”
Complicated process
Bennett said his society is always working to devise new models to help fund affordable units, sometimes pooling financial contributions from several agencies.
But, he said, “to pull all those pieces together is exceedingly complicated and it takes a lot of work.”
Stone said she’s keenly aware of the challenge to provide enough affordable housing.
Prior to losing her apartment in New Westminster, she’d been on the BC Housing waiting list for five years. She said she’d also applied to every co-op in Metro Vancouver but “nothing was available.”
“It was pretty hopeless,” Stone said.
Now that she’s settled in her new home, though, Stone is starting to take advantage of her building’s host of luxurious amenities, like its indoor basketball/badminton court, the games and community room that features a full kitchen, a gym and yoga studio as well as an outdoor garden atop the parkade with seating areas, play structures and several gas barbecues. She said she’s keen to start a podcast that she can record in the building’s special sound room as well.
It’s a lifestyle Stone never imagined for herself.
“I would never have been able to work hard enough to live in a building like this,” she said. “It changes your perception of yourself.”
MARIO BARTEL 