Cool Aid's new $50M complex combines supportive housing with rentals
The supportive-housing section will have a separate entrance controlled by an adjacent office. On the rental-housing side, 70 per cent of the units will be subsidized.
The $50-million building was built next to the former Tally-Ho hotel with funding from B.C. Housing, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the Ministry of Education and Childcare, the City of Victoria’s housing reserve fund, Infrastructure Canada, Fortis BC and Island Health.
The hotel, which was purchased by the province for $9.3 million and has been owned and operated as a Cool Aid supportive-housing facility since 2017, is being transferred back to the province as part of the financing conditions.
Cool Aid has submitted potential redevelopment plans for the Tally-Ho property but the fate of the site will be up to B.C. Housing. There are currently still 22 people living in the Tally-Ho.
Out of the 100 rental-housing units planned at Crosstown, which include everything from studios to three-bedrooms, 20 are being rented out at the shelter rate of $500.
Of the remaining 80 units, 30 will be rented at market rates while the rest will be subsidized rentals geared to 30 per cent of a renter’s monthly income.
The building’s studio and one-bedroom apartments will rent for $500 to $1,600 a month, according to Cool Aid’s website. Two-bedroom apartments will rent for $1,250 to $2,200, and three-bedroom apartments rent for $1,625 to $3,000 a month, the website said.
A short walk from the rental side of Crosstown, entry into the complex’s separate 54-unit supportive housing facility is controlled by an adjacent office.
Inside, the hallways are covered in protective siding and the cove joints slope into the walls. There are floor drains in every bathroom for flood protection.
Associate director of housing and shelters Angela Moran said the building’s supportive-housing section features “an incredible purpose-built design” tailored to the needs of people experiencing homelessness.
“You’ll have all the main amenities, which will be food services, the dining hall, an area outside for people to safely use and consume their substances,” said Moran during a recent media tour, pointing to a second-floor balcony accessible only to residents and staff of the facility.
Many of Cool Aid’s supportive-housing facilities have some form of outdoor space for people to use drugs, with drug users increasingly favouring inhalation over injection, she said.
In a follow-up statement, Cool Aid spokesperson Tracey Robertson said the organization is still working with partners to decide how to incorporate harm-reduction practices into Crosstown’s supportive-housing site and that no details — location or services provided — have been confirmed so far.
Most of those moving into Crosstown will be residents of the nearby Tally-Ho supportive-housing site as well as those on a list of people provided through B.C. Housing, not people “directly from the streets,” Robertson said.
Cool Aid is planning for supportive-housing residents to move in by March or April, pending discussions with B.C. Housing, Moran said, adding the organization has a 95 per cent occupancy rate at its supportive-housing sites.
https://www.timescol...rentals-9894813
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