Housing Needs Report shows gaps across the board in PG housing

Affordable housing is a hot topic across BC, but the City of Prince George authorized a study to see what kinds of homes are needed in the community.

A 222-page report broke down a number of statistics, the size of our population, the demographic, median income, and the types of housing currently available.

City Council will be discussing the report during tomorrow’s (Monday) City Council meeting, which summarizes that there is a gap in housing in every category.

A summary forecast until 2031 showed Prince George needs:

• Over 5,000 rental primary units.
• 72 spaces for emergency shelters, including 40 emergency shelter units.
• 131 additional spaces for short term supportive housing.
• over 300 senior units and 160 units for other needs in long term supportive housing.
• over 2,500 units in subsidized rental housing for households bringing in less than $29,000 per year.
• over 2,700 units in affordable homeownership for incomes less than $65,000 a year.

Some other key findings the report found were that the average rental unit price has increased 66% between 2005 and 2020, and average home sale prices have increased 140% between 2016 and 2020.

City Council will also cover the relocation of the Terry Fox Statue, a presentation on the $2,845,000 Rotary Park will be given by the Prince George Community Foundation, and the provincially funded Malaspina Daycare is increasing it’s budget from just under $3 million, to over $5 million.