10/16/2026
The Good and the Not so Good. An excerpt on housing from Broadview Magazine.
In British Columbia, the UCC's Pacific Mountain Region staffs two housing societies with a history of providing affordable housing: Three Point Housing Society and Community Renewal Society. Don Evans, director of both societies, says two projects that were completed in 2022 include affordable rent-geared-to-income apartments: the 75-unit Mountain View Suites in Coquitlam, with land contributed by Como Lake United, and the 74-unit Brechin Hill project in Nanaimo, on land from Brechin United ( see picture below). The Nanaimo project took 10 years to complete, including pre-construction. A change of builders partway through contributed to the delay. The Coquitlam apartments experienced similar contractor issues.
Unlike Kindred Works (affiliated with the national UCC), which declined requests to release project costs and funding sources, citing its status as a privately held company, the B.C. groups readily provided this information, (and Stella’s Circle produces annual reports as a requirement of being a non-profit.)
In Vancouver — with some of Canada’s highest property prices and costliest rents, rivalled only by Toronto — a housing project in Pacific Mountain Region, delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, broke ground on construction in late 2025. With more than $11 million in land and cash from Lakeview Multicultural United, the six-storey, 104-unit project on East Vancouver’s Semlin Drive will cost about $70 million and provide 31 rent-geared-to-income homes. The project received about $53 million in funding, including $3.5 million from Pacific Mountain; several mortgages cover the rest. Lakeview will have meeting space in the new building.
