Nine new transitional housing units for refugees coming to Port Moody
House of Omeed, a non-profit that supports newcomers, will build these units atop their charity
Port Moody city council recently approved nine new non-market residential units — enough to accommodate approximately 36 people — as transition housing for refugees at a meeting Nov. 12.
House of Omeed, a local not-for-profit, applied to rezone their property at 2340 Clarke street to build the units above the existing charity. They were also approved for over $54,000 of development fee waivers and refunds, as well as $24,000 from the Affordable Housing Reserve Fund.
The charity helps newcomers to Port Moody settle by providing a range of services, from culturally appropriate food, to English classes, to paperwork assistance, to children’s programs, to a library.
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“Nine units is wonderful, especially as we know that it will help nine families get settled, and then it will help nine more families get settled, and so on and so forth,” said Coun. Amy Lubik.
She added that Port Moody doesn’t currently have any refugee transition housing, and there’s little across the Lower Mainland.
While all councillors were in favour of the project, there was a difference of opinion about how to fund it.
Coun. Callan Morrison raised a concern about the fee waivers. For example, city staff requested a Community Amenity Contribution fee waiver of over $15,000 — a finance tool that allows the city to collect funds from developers to build amenities.
He said all of the funds for the new housing should come from the Affordable Housing Reserve Fund — rather than take from community amenities.
City staff responded that their reasoning was that “essentially, you’re just moving funds” and that they are “trying to build up the fund, affordable housing.”
Coun. Kyla Knowles agreed with Coun. Morrison, saying that she’s a big proponent of using the funds for their intended use —- and that the Affordable Housing Reserve Fund “is literally to provide affordable housing.”
“If there’s an issue that people have with perhaps wanting to use different reserves for different things, well, then, why do we have names? Why do we have names and labels for reserves?”
Other councillors, however, weren’t concerned about what fund the money came from.
“What I’m hearing is that it doesn’t really matter what pot of money we spend the money from, we have the funds available, it’s really just an internal transfer,” said Coun. Samantha Agtarap.
Coun. Morrison and Coun. Knowles voted in favour of an amendment to change where the funds came from, but all the other councillors opposed.
Council voted unanimously in favour of approving the project.
