Attorney General
Families, seniors and people with disabilities in Trail are moving into homes they can afford, with a nine-unit apartment building opening in the community.
Located on provincially owned land at 1232 Columbia Ave., Columbia Park provides studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom homes for people with moderate and low incomes.
Lower Columbia Affordable Housing Society is operating the three-storey building. Monthly rents range from $375 to $1,050, depending on unit size and tenant income.
Funding for the project was provided by the following:
- The Province provided a $900,000 grant through the Building BC: Community Housing Fund for the project.
- The federal government, through the Canada and Mortgage Housing Corporation (CMHC), provided a Federal Bilateral Canada Community Housing Initiative grant of approximately $400,000.
- The Columbia Basin Trust provided a grant of approximately $115,000.
- Teck Trail Operations contributed a donation of $15,000.
- Kootenay Savings Credit Union provided $10,000.
The site is located in east Trail, within walking distance of many community services.
Residents started moving into their new homes on May 28, 2021.
Quick Facts:
- To help more Canadians access affordable housing that meets their needs, the Government of Canada launched the National Housing Strategy – a 10-year, more-than-$55-billion program designed to build 125,000 new affordable housing units, repair 300,000 others and reduce chronic homelessness by 50%.
- The Community Housing Fund is part of the Province’s 10-year, $7-billion housing plan.
- It is an investment of $1.9 billion to build more than 14,000 affordable rental homes for low- and moderate-income families and individuals over 10 years.
- More than 6,100 of these homes are already open, under construction or in development.
- The Community Housing Fund supports mixed-income buildings where 50% of the units are for households with annual incomes up to $64,000, 30% of the units are for households with incomes up to approximately $74,000 and 20% of the units are for households with very low incomes (including those on income or disability assistance).
- The Province is working in partnership to increase the supply of affordable homes in the Kootenays for people at a range of income levels. Including this new project, there are 560 homes completed or underway.
Learn More:
As Canada's authority on housing, CMHC contributes to the stability of the housing market and financial system, provides support for Canadians in housing need and offers unbiased housing research and advice to all levels of Canadian government, consumers and the housing industry. For more information, visit: https://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/
To find out more about the National Housing Strategy, visit: www.placetocallhome.ca
To learn about the steps the Province is taking to tackle the housing crisis and deliver affordable homes for British Columbians, visit: https://workingforyou.gov.bc.ca/
A map showing the location of all announced provincially funded housing projects in B.C. is available online: https://www.bchousing.org/homes-for-BC
A backgrounder follows.
