Minister of Housing promises middle-income housing in Nanaimo

Minister of Housing Ravi Kahlon says that more housing for middle-income residents in Nanaimo is on the way as part of the BC Builds program. Photo: BC NDP / Flickr.

British Columbia’s housing minister Ravi Kahlon says that the province is working to help people in Nanaimo with the rising cost of rent.

He says that a recent report by the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation shows that the government can’t rely on the private market to address the housing crisis.

“Right now, the private market is not able to deliver more affordable housing for middle income earners, the folks who are working at the radio station, folks who are police officers, nurses, etcetera.,” he said.

According to Kahlon, the province’s BC Builds program will use public land and financing to build affordable housing for middle income families in Nanaimo.

“Quite frankly, we're 20 years behind when it comes to building affordable housing,” Kahlon said. “Because for almost 20 years, the government decided, ‘hey, this is not our place. The private sector will solve it.’ We're paying the price for those decisions now, so we need to move into that space.”

Kahlon said that he can’t say how much of that housing will be in Nanaimo but that it will be an ongoing commitment.

“It's not going to be a one and done, this is going to be a rolling initiative that will be year over year.” he said. “We're going to continue to make investments in Nanaimo in particular because Nanaimo’s got a lot of people moving there. A lot of young families. I've got family and friends who actually moved to Nanaimo recently, and the need is desperately there.”

However, he rejected the call from Nanaimo city councillor Hiliary Eastmure and housing advocates to implement vacancy control, which would regulate the amount of rent landlords could charge on vacant units.

“The BC housing task force recommended against it, because what it does is it disincentivizes others that are looking to build purpose built rentals,” he said. “During a time when we need more housing to be built, throwing a disincentive in the way that will preclude that housing to be built would be counterproductive.”

Kahlon, who is also the government house leader, said that he’s looking at introducing a couple of new housing bills in the upcoming spring session of the legislature.

“We are looking at two measures. One measure, which we already signaled to our local government partners around giving them tools to protect tenants who may be displaced because of new developments. So that's one important one and we're also looking to find ways to better support tenants in precarious housing situations.”

Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.