Saying it’s difficult to find affordable housing in Greater Victoria is an understatement.
That’s where the Quadra Village Community Centre’s Housing Outreach Program comes in — the goal is to give people the tools and support to find — or retain — affordable housing in a tight market.
The precarious state of housing, which received a failing grade in the Victoria Foundation’s 2022 Vital Signs report, was one of the reasons the foundation approved a 2023 Vital Grant to the neighbourhood association.
“People we see are desperate,” said Shavonne Paltiel, housing outreach co-ordinator for Quadra Village Community Centre. “They are angry and frustrated.”
Paltiel said even couples with two sources of income can find it hard to find affordable housing and make ends meet.
Since the housing outreach program started in November 2021, Paltiel and team member Lisa Crossman have been able to prevent more than 80 people from losing their housing by advocating for them with landlords, helping them find employment, providing small amounts of short-term funding, assisting them with obtaining income assistance and finding subsidies.
They say they were also able to obtain housing for 17 individuals who were either unhoused or at high risk of becoming unhoused.
So far, the program has provided more than 1,260 one-on-one sessions to close to 490 members of the community.
Kelly Greenwell, executive director of the Quadra Village Community Centre, said the outreach effort is critical to community members who are overwhelmed by the difficulty of housing applications and searches.
“The program gives people a chance to find housing who don’t have the tools to succeed during this affordability crisis.”
Greenwell said the program started after members of the community facing homelessness approached the neighbourhood association for help. It also gets referrals from social workers.
“It is bleak out there. People would come to us not having an idea of what steps they had to take. We provide them with counselling support so that they stay calm.”
Greenwell said the outreach workers “serve as a bridge” between tenants and landlords as tenants navigate the social housing system, and even try to find money to cover rent that’s in arrears. “We sometimes have to come up with creative solutions to have them retain their housing. We know that, with the lack of available housing, the odds are long on finding something else if they lose their housing.”
A grant from the Victoria Foundation allowed the neighbourhood association to hire the equivalent of one housing outreach co-ordinator position to help handle the workload.
“Receiving the grant is huge,” said Paltiel. “We wouldn’t be able to do our job without it.”
Finding housing is hard enough for most people, but it’s even harder for some of the people the neighbourhood association serves, who may be unemployed, on disability or elderly.
Some do not have computer or a telephone, tools necessary to search for — or be made aware of — a vacancy in a fast-moving rental market.
“Not having a phone is like an impossible barrier to overcome these days,” said Greenwell. “If you don’t respond immediately once a vacancy is posted, it’s gone.”
He said the team’s challenge for someone who doesn’t have a phone is to try to persuade them to find the money in their budget to get one.
“Otherwise, [finding a place] wasn’t going to happen.”
For more information, go to
>>> To comment on this article, write a letter to the editor: [email protected]
