Roast beef, sparkling conversation and a robust silent auction filled the Sturgeon Valley Golf and Country Club clubhouse Tuesday, Oct. 29.
The 13th annual Unlocking Doors to Affordable Rental Housing fundraiser for the St. Albert Housing Society drew more than 100 people to the club just outside the city limits for a lunch emceed by CTV weatherman Josh Classen.
Rob Appleyard, executive director of Brentwood Community Development Group, spoke to the crowd, which included Mayor Cathy Heron and other members of St. Albert city council, about the differences between “affordable housing” and rent geared-to-income (RGI), which is employed at Brentwood’s 680-unit complex in Edmonton.
Affordable housing sees a number of units in a development with rent rates that are a given percentage below the market average, where RGI subsidizes a unit’s occupant to gear the rent to exactly 30 per cent of their income, which is about how much housing groups say folks should be spending on shelter.
The subsidy gradually decreases; when a renter’s income allows them to spend less than 30 per cent of their income on rent, they don’t have to move, the subsidy just shifts to another unit.
He said for a host of reasons, RGI is 520 per cent more efficient than conventional affordable housing.
Gary Mitchell, the society’s board chair, told the group they are trying to buy more units, but financing is a challenge. Currently the society operates 29 units, 27 of them for seniors and two for families fleeing domestic violence.
Before the chafing trays for lunch opened, he ordered up a round of applause for Carol Sloan, the society’s CEO, who among many other things is involved in reviewing applications.
Sloan told the Gazette earlier this month that demand for the housing society's help has nearly tripled.
“It’s a terrible job because so many need help,” he said. “I wouldn’t want that job, that’s for certain.”