A draft action plan calling for community groups and local governments to work together to address housing needs on the Sunshine Coast has come out of an emergency housing meeting held March 1.
Representatives from 25 organizations attended the meeting, including Community Futures, Salvation Army, Rotary clubs and the Sunshine Coast Affordable Housing Society, as well as politicians and representatives from local government, shíshálh Nation and School District No. 46. MP Patrick Weiler also attended.
The Sechelt Chamber of Commerce had asked to participate but was not included on the list of invitees, and neither was RainCity Housing and BC Housing.
Short-term fixes were the focus of the 47 participants over the two-hour meeting, said Sechelt Coun. Matt McLean, who had initially made a motion on Feb. 17 for the District of Sechelt to spend $1,500 to hire a facilitator to host the meeting, following direction from the Sechelt Housing Committee.
At the meeting, five groups were established with an agreement to report back to the larger group within two months.
Those “action subcommittees” will look at the potential of hiring a housing coordinator, finding ways to convert underused land and housing stock into affordable rentals, addressing homelessness, identifying barriers to rental housing and public communication, including “sharing stories of the crisis we’re in,” McLean told Coast Reporter.
“A commitment was made by all to meet and identify initiatives that could be moved forward immediately and create the structures to make them happen,” said a release outlining the need for the meeting and next steps.
The groups in attendance are also expected to take a draft call to action back to their organizations for approval.
Among the six items listed in that call to action document was a mandate to “take meaningful, incremental actions as outlined in the Housing Needs Assessment Implementation Framework before the end of 2021.”
Other items included working collaboratively across governments and community groups, applying a lens of decolonization and social justice to the work and investing in collective resources.
The call to action identifies the housing crisis as “the single greatest threat to equitable and sustainable communities as well as economic development on the Sunshine Coast.”
It said the “a new approach” was needed for housing uses and construction on the Sunshine Coast.
“In rethinking how we house people, we have an incredible opportunity to create healthier, more equitable and more just communities.”
