The federal Housing Accelerator Fund is helping HRM address its market housing needs, but HRM’s efforts on non-market housing have been lacklustre at best over the past four years.
I think there’s been too much squabbling between Regional Council and the Province. As your Councillor, I will change that dynamic.
If we want more affordable housing, we need to have a stronger non-profit housing sector, and that will help us do a better job at addressing homelessness.
I want to encourage a grassroots, bottom-up approach that focuses attention on the true experts, our non-profit sector.
I’ll work closely with the estimated 20 non-profit housing groups in District 5 and learn about the barriers they face. I will take guidance from the organizations that are already doing the hard work delivering permanent, quality, affordable housing for their clients and tenants.
To assist in bringing the focus back to helping residents in District 5, I will host a housing forum with our non-profit housing community. The forum will help promote partnerships, find innovative ways to create more community-based housing, and build our community’s capacity.
I also want to make residents and businesses more aware of existing programs that can help them reduce their housing costs.
HRM’s web site says that housing is a shared responsibility between 3 levels of government. I agree with that, but there are areas of municipal jurisdiction that need to be improved.
On housing, I want to present a united front in District 5.
If we work together, I am confident we can make progress on addressing our most pressing housing challenges.
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