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CAMPAIGN PRIORITIES

By 2034, our Build More and Protect More strategy will deliver $2.4 billion in annual savings through reduced homelessness services and up to $46 billion in potential growth in BC’s GDP.  

BUILD MORE 

Building 12,500 new affordable rental housing units each year for the next 10 years will:  

  • Address the current unmet need of 30,000 homes. Included in this backlog are 16,000 homes that will need to be affordable to very low incomes, and 14,000 homes affordable to those with low to moderate incomes.  
  • Address future growth, anticipated to be 210,000 more renter households by 2034. Nearly half of these (90,000) will rely on the community housing sector for an affordable home.  
  • Address homelessness, estimated to be a minimum of 11,352 people in 2023. A minimum of 500 supportive homes will need to be built each year for people requiring additional supports. 

Recommendations 

  • Build 6,600 deeply affordable homes for very low-income renter households, including 1,530 homes for Indigenous people 
  • Build 5,400 below-market rental homes for low- and moderate-income renter households, including 1,21 homes for Indigenous people 
  • Build 500 supportive housing units, including 260 homes for Indigenous people 

PROTECT MORE 

Building new affordable homes is important, but it won’t be enough to solve the housing crisis. Between 2016 and 2021, BC lost over 97,000 units renting below $1,000 per month; in that same period only 8,027 non-market units were built.  

This rapid erosion of affordability, through unit turnover and forced evictions, demands we act quickly to protect more of the affordable homes we already have.  

Housing Central advocated for a strategy that has already preserved the affordability of nearly 1,500 rental homes and has 3,000 more in the pipeline.  

Additional support for the Rental Protection Fund will help the community housing sector: 

  • Acquire and protect 2,000 existing affordable rental homes annually 
  • Renew buildings so they can be brought up to good condition, extending their lifespan and making them more energy efficient

We also need to invest in our aging community housing stock, most of which was built in the 1970s and 1980s. Chronic underfunding of planned maintenance leads to reduced building life, increased operating costs, and diminished quality of life for residents.  

Recommendations 

  • Protect 2,000 rental homes annually through renewed investments in the BC Rental Protection Fund 
  • Invest $557 million per year to help non-profits bring existing homes back to “good condition” by 2034