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Check out the latest news about Leduc Regional Housing Foundation below.
Written By Peter Willams, Leduc Rep
Published Apr 05, 2023
The Leduc Regional Housing Foundation (LRHF) received good news on March 9 when the Government of Alberta announced the foundation as one of the recipients of the Affordable Housing Partnership Program (AHPP).
The program is providing $54 million to support 17 projects across nine communities in the province, with the LRHF receiving $2 million to build family and community housing in Leduc.
“We’re thrilled. Our application was very strong, and we’ve been working on this, trying to get this housing in place now for quite some time, and we need it. We desperately need it,” said LRHF Executive Director Margot Hagarty.
The recipient of the funds will be Gaetz Landing. Located a block off Main Street, the building currently hosts 13 units of affordable housing as well as first-floor commercial retail space.
A possible expansion would see an elevator and 24 additional one bedroom units added. The units would cost approximately $600 a month to rent and be available to vulnerable females coming from difficult domestic situations.
As of January 1, the waitlist for one bedroom units in the Leduc region sits at 146. Hagarty says a recently conducted needs assessment of the region reported that there will be a need for over 600 units of affordable housing in the next 10 years.
“And we’re excited to get 24,” Hagarty said. “Now more than ever the need for having affordable housing is just screaming at everyone. It’s on the radar for all levels of government. This isn’t a Leduc issue, it’s not a regional or a provincial issue. This is a national issue.”
To be successful for the AHPP, the foundation needed to get municipal backing as well. The seven municipalities that the LRHF works with — Leduc, Beaumont, Devon, Calmar, Thorsby, Warburg and New Sarepta — came together to contribute $500,000 to the project.
“Things like this don’t happen without a huge commitment on a lot of people’s parts, and I can’t say enough to the administration and the City of Leduc for their support to work with us to get everything lined up so quickly. It’s been quite phenomenal,” Hagarty said.
The journey is not over for the LRHF just yet, who now wait to hear if they were successful in their application for the Rapid Housing Initiative from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). The foundation has been rejected twice for the initiative before, but is hopeful this time around with other financial support already in place.
“It’s a stacking method. Now, let’s say we don’t get the CMHC funding, we’re still going to figure out something because we got the commitment from the Government of Alberta,” Hagarty said.
“Maybe we won’t end up with that deep subsidy and being able to charge rents of $600, but we’ll be able to add some near-market value units. But we would love to be able to do this full affordable housing.”
If the foundation receives the CMHC funding, they can break ground just a month later and have the Gaetz Landing expansion operating in less than a year.
The LRHF also provides a rent supplement program that offers households up to $450 a month to ease financial burdens. In 2023, $1,485,000 will be given to those in need.