High River's Family and Community Support Services brought Town Council up to date on affordable housing in town at their regular meeting Monday, November 27.

In her third quarter report, Kate Tymstra, Coordinator with FCSS for Programs and Projects says it's generally been a good year.

"Although our revenues are down due to some vacancies early in the year we expect to break even and still be able to put the budgeted amount into our reserves," Tymstra says. "We made some changes on how we manage the administration of the program so we were able to stay on budget despite reduced revenues."

She says they're now doing the financial part of managing affordable housing instead of contracting it out to the Bethany Care Society and there's now a local property manager.

Tymstra says they received funding from the provincial government originally to build the units so there are guidelines about eligibility, including a minimum and maximum income and limits on the number of people allowed in each unit, limiting the number of large families that qualify.

She says the Town has 30 affordable housing units, 24 apartments and six condo units.

They'll transfer about $23,000 to reserves for long term repairs and replacement of things like the roof or furnaces so they don't have to dip into the Town's general budget.

 

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