ASK Salt Spring: Answered - Mairi Welman - Salt Spring Solutions - Housing

Episode Date: May 30, 2023

CHIR interviews Mairi Welman a spokesperson for Salt Spring Solutions on their recent study, Homes for Islanders

Yes. Welcome to the Cheer.fm podcast, Ask Salt Spring Answered. After many Ask Salt Spring events, we sit down in our studio with Gail Baker's guest and review some of the key points discussed. Hi, and welcome to episode 11, where Damian Inwood chats with Marie Wellman, a spokesman for Salt Spring Solutions, on their recent report, Homes for Islanders. Okay, I'm here with Mary Wellman, and we've just been at Ask Salt Spring, where the Salt Spring Solutions have been talking about their recent study,

Homes for Islanders, which came out, I think, what, about two months ago, was it? Yeah. And Mary was telling us about some next steps that Salt Spring Solutions is going to be taking. And perhaps you can fill me in. It's later in June, isn't it, at the end of June, that you're going to have a meeting with the CRD, the Islands Trust, and the North Salt Spring Water District, I think, to talk about where to go next on housing. Yeah, the strategy that we've published has five key strategies in it, the first two of which are

foundational to our mind, and they're around having a locally resourced Salt Spring housing entity that is the central focus for housing on the island. And the second strategy is around raising public awareness, doing public education and engagement. And so to that end, one of the first things we're doing is holding a workshop in late June. We've invited elected officials and senior staff from the Capital Regional District, the Islands Trust, North Salt Spring Water Works, and the province. And basically, it's the key players who have

some sort of authority and mandate in the housing realm on Salt Spring Island. Our governance here is very fragmented, as everyone knows. And so everybody's got a piece of the, it's the old analogy of the men in an elephant in a dark room, and they've each got a different piece of the animal, and nobody sees the whole picture. So our strategy actually was a research project to pull together all of the work that's been done previously and come at it from a very strategic perspective on what could the next steps be, what's the

necessary foundational system change work that needs to happen so that we don't spend the next 30 years, you know, saying we don't have any housing. And so we think it starts with talking to the people who have authority, getting them to talk to each other, and getting them to agree on a way forward together. Okay, and obviously this is a first step. It's a four-hour meeting, is that right? And I think you said you don't really know what's going to come out of it, whether it will just be future meetings on the same thing, or if you actually can come to some kind of agreement. People, I think, are looking for solutions. And obviously, I've heard people say that there's too much talking and not enough doing. But obviously, we have to have this discussion at this level, right?

Yeah, it is frustrating. We're all frustrated by the lack of action. And that's one of the things we took a deep dive into looking at when we were writing this housing framework is like, there's been lots of work done. There's been lots of research. There's been housing needs assessments. There's been project proposals, and yet none of it has landed. Why is that? And it's our fragmented governance. And so if we can get those fragments in the room together and they can agree that we need a centralized body that's responsible and responsive to the housing challenges on Salt Spring, to us that's a great first step because if we just continue on the path that we're on,

that fragmented governance is going to keep preventing us from achieving what we want to get done. Right, and I think some people might be a bit worried about the new housing authority or a new level of government, if you want, being brought in at this point. But how do you see it kind of functioning? It's not a new government. So some people may not be aware that the Capital Regional District, which is the regional district that Salt Spring falls within, has a housing corporation. Most of the larger regional districts in BC have a housing corporation.

And we think that the local Salt Spring housing authority should fall under that housing corporation. It's not elected necessarily. It would be resourced with staff time. There needs to be a central hub that people who want to create housing can go to where BC Housing can work with, where the regional district can work with, where nonprofits can work with. Right now it's kind of every project they have to start from square one and go through all the lessons and try to get it done. If we have this central authority that has a mandate, that has responsibility and that has funding, we have a far greater chance of getting

projects built, which is what everybody wants done. We want housing solved on the island and not in another 20 years. Okay, so it would be made up of local residents. How would they actually get onto this housing authority? No, it would be staffed. It would be staffed only. Yeah, it's not volunteer because we're doing volunteer now and it's not getting us where we need to go. Okay, and it would be part of the CRD Housing Association, I think.

Housing Corporation. Corporation, right. Yeah. And they have a pot of money that they can issue to different housing projects throughout the CRD. So, and I know we've had some, we've got some of it before for things like Croftonbrook. How would we get a bigger slice of that, do you think? Well, part of it is you need to demonstrate the need, which partially has already been done.

There's thought file analysis that needs to go into, like we were talking about at ASK, you know, just to give you sort of one example. If we think that there should be more housing options in Ganges, we can't just go out and start building more housing in Ganges. We need to look at the infrastructure that's required, what's already there and what can be used. And one of the big ifs about Ganges is climate change and sea level rise. The last thing you would do is build housing in a floodplain. So it's deeply unsexy. It's not like going out and like, okay, we're going to suddenly build 20 units of housing. There's a lot of system work that needs to be done before any of that can happen.

Right. Okay. Now, I know that we talked about the LCC at the Ask Saltspring meeting, and the point has been made at various All Candidates meetings and things that they don't actually have a mandate to control housing, but they can get at it through their economic development side of things. Is that part of this next step, really, getting the LCC involved? Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, the LCC election hasn't happened yet, but once it happens, we'll know who to ask to be involved. Gary, who's our CRD director, Gary Holman, will be at the meeting at the end of June, and some of the CRD staff will be there.

I agree with Gary that economic development and transit planning, transportation planning, are the two leverage points where the LCC can have influence on housing outcomes. There's lots of organizations on the island that need to work together. We're starting with government, but the Chamber of Commerce also has a role to play, I think. When they start diving into this issue, they start to realize how incredibly interconnected housing is with the survival of our businesses, with our employment, with our hospital, with our schools, everything. And so we all need to bring our little piece of the pie together to work on this.

Yeah, I know that the Chamber had talked in the past, I was at one of their meetings, they were talking about providing some space for a group that would help put employers together with people who needed housing and somehow, I guess, helping them get the accommodation they need in order to be able to get the job. And that seemed like a good idea. It's a replication of the Housing Now program, which is happening in the Southern Gulf Islands electoral area. It's funded by the CRD and it's exactly that. It's a tenant and landlord matching service. Right. Because there is, as was said at the meeting, and I've heard this many times before,

that there is a reluctance among some people who have accommodation in their homes that they could be renting out, that they don't feel they have enough protection in the event that they get a bad tenant and it's difficult to remove them. So that is also an issue I think that needs to be addressed. I agree. Yeah. Okay, Mary. Well, thanks very much for this. It was an enjoyable discussion. I hope your meeting goes well at the end of the month. And hopefully we actually do see some progress after a lot of talking about housing. I think probably four of the last five Ask Salt Spring sessions, housing has been the main topic of conversation. I think it's sort of gotten to the point where everybody in the island realizes that it is our primary

issue and that nothing else will work without it. It's a linchpin issue. And you know, the public isn't going to hear very much from us over the summer because we understand that everyone on Salt Spring is busy in the summertime, but the public should keep an eye out for us in the fall because that's when we'll be launching into our public engagement on this. Yeah, that's your second strategy step, isn't it? The public education engagement. Yeah. And how will that take place, do you think?

Will that be like sort of town hall meeting sessions or what kind of things were you thinking of? We're just planning it right now. But one of the things we do want to be careful to do is use different tools for different audiences because town hall meeting doesn't work for everybody and online doesn't work for everybody. You kind of need a scattering of all the different tools for different age groups and different interests. There hasn't been very good public education on the topic. And it's one of the things that we want to see happen in the fall. We think it's important to talk across value lines. There are some gnarly problems on Salt Spring that need to be fixed, and only by talking to each other can we get there.

Yeah, and I think it's fair to say, obviously, this doesn't just come out of thin air. You need money and help to get this kind of thing going, right? If people wanted to support Salt Spring Solutions, how would they go about that and if they wanted to donate money or or support or volunteer or whatever how where would they go that would be wonderful they could go to our website saltspringsolutions.com there's a donate button on there um our website is pretty comprehensive it'll give you all the information you need about the work that we're doing there There's also a copy, full copy of the housing framework there if you'd like to download it and read it. And yeah, we'd love the support.

This kind of stuff isn't cheap. We're volunteers. We are residents in the community. You know, three-fourths of our board all have full-time jobs. I'm the only retired person on our board. And so when we hire a professional facilitator to come in and help us conduct a meeting, that money's coming out of our pocket and we don't have deep pockets. So it would be nice to get some support on that. Right. Great. Well, thanks Mary for coming in. My name is Damian Inwood. You're listening to CHIR.FM, the voice of the Gulf Islands.