The interest across Canada in The Village transitional-housing project on Trunk Road continues to grow.
At a city council meeting in Duncan on April 28, Mayor Michelle Staples informed council that while travelling recently, she picked up a copy of the well-read Canadian weekly Maclean’s news magazine and found that The Village was included in an article called “How to Fix Canada’s Housing Crisis”, which was the headline story that week.
The article’s authors said in the preamble to the story that they assembled 25 “smart, surprising, common-sense solutions that will help us build homes fast, lower prices and cool down our blazing market”.
The 25 suggestions included “Get Kids into Trades”, "Turn Industrial Relics Into Housing”, and The Village was included in the very first suggestion, “Build Tiny Homes Fast”.
The article points out that tiny-home villages have emerged as a solution to Canada’s homelessness crisis, and mentions that in Duncan, “a 34-unit village was built on an unused lot owned by BC Housing in January of 2022”.
Needless to say, Staples was delighted to see The Village, which was the first of its kind in B.C. when it was established in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, has gained national recognition and is being read about in the magazine from coast to coast to coast.
She also put forth a motion, which was passed unanimously by council, directing staff to prepare a resolution to submit to the 2025 Union of BC Municipalities Convention for consideration to have the The Village included in the federal government’s Homes for People housing continuum.
“[The Village model] is being adopted across Canada and in other places in B.C., so it deserves a place on that [housing continuum] in my humble opinion.”
In case you didn’t know (I had to look it up), a housing continuum is a concept that describes the range of housing options available to people of all income levels and with varying needs, from emergency shelter and housing for the homeless to affordable rental housing and homeownership.
The Village currently has 34 modular sleeping cabins for people in transition from homelessness, and wraparound services are provided 24 hours a day.
The concept wasn’t so popular when it was first proposed.
More than 600 people in the Trunk Road neighbourhood signed a petition against it, and many delegations came to Duncan's city council to speak in opposition to the project at the meeting in 2021 when council first decided to allow it to operate within its jurisdiction.
But last year, when the City of Duncan’s council decided to issue the latest temporary-use permit to allow the The Village to continue on Trunk Road until Dec. 31, 2026, there was almost no opposition to it at all.
It appears that the non-profit Lookout Housing and Health Society, which has managed The Village from its beginning and has been involved in similar projects across B.C. for the past 50 years, kept its promise to run a secure and quiet facility that would have little adverse impacts on its neighbours.
More importantly, the project is proving to be very successful and effective in helping people who desperately need assistance to get off the streets and get back on track to living healthy, happy and fulfilling lives with roofs over their heads.
The type of modular housing used for the Village is cheaper than most other transitional housing options and can be assembled in just a matter of weeks, and disassembled even faster when required, which makes them a quick and efficient housing option at a time when housing is scarce, and they can save many lives in the process.
The Village has been deemed so successful by a number of other municipalities on Vancouver Island, including Victoria and Nanaimo, that they urged the province to incorporate the Duncan-made model for transitional housing as part of B.C.’s supportive-housing strategy last year, and for the housing model to receive continued funding from BC Housing.
It’s no wonder the housing model has caught the attention of Maclean’s magazine and its writers.
We should, as a community, feel proud of ourselves for this accomplishment.
