subscribe to our RSS feedTrapp Block: New housing helps homeless women
May 27th, 2009
New housing helps homeless women
Theresa McManus
The Record
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Women and children who are at risk of homelessness will soon have a new home in New Westminster.
The Salient Group, which owns the historic Trapp Block on Columbia Street, is making space available to the Atira Women’s Resource Society. The group will provide housing to women and children who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, with priority being given to women and children who are homeless in New Westminster.
“In a nutshell, we did not see that there would be a market for the new project for a little while. We thought it was a real shame to see the units in the Holbrook Block sitting vacant,” said Salient president Robert Fung. “When we bought the building, those rooms were vacant. To have them sit there further, when there is a need, didn’t seem to make any sense.”
Salient’s project would incorporate the Holbrook Block at 660 Columbia St. and the Trapp Block at 668 Columbia St. Atira will make use of 27 rooms in the Holbrook Block that were formerly used for housing.
Fung, a member of the Streetohome Foundation’s housing committee in Vancouver, mentioned the empty space to fellow committee member and Atira executive director Janice Abbott.
“We were moving forward within a couple days,” he said. “There is no doubt the need is there.”
Atira Women’s Resource Society is a not-for-profit organization that provides a variety of housing projects, women’s outreach programs, programs for high-risk pregnant and early parenting women and programs for women and children experiencing violence.
“We are pretty happy it worked out,” Fung said. “They can be there probably for a couple years. It sounds like it makes good sense.”
John Stark, the city’s senior social planner, said the development is a private lease arrangement between Salient and Atira and is permitted under the C-8 zone.
“The proposal is for housing only, and it will be managed by a live-in caretaker,” he said in an e-mail to The Record. “These women and children will be connected to other service providers in New Westminster; however, no programing will be offered on the site.”
Earlier this year, the Salient Group put the much-anticipated redevelopment of the Trapp Block on hold until market conditions improve.
Last summer, city council approved the company’s plan for a mixed-use development with commercial at ground level and 176 housing units above.
“Right now, in this interesting and challenging market, we won’t be moving ahead with this project. We are still excited about it,” Fung told The Record Tuesday. “It’s a waste and a lost opportunity to have it sit there vacant.”
A wedding shop has opened in one of the ground-floor suites, and Salient is still receiving inquiries about the Windjammer space.
“If they are thinking long-term, that is not going to work,” Fung said about potential tenants. “It is a two-year commitment from our standpoint.”
Fung said it’s better for the building and for the street to have people living there.
He’s not sure when the development will proceed.
“It really is going to depend when the banks start to loosen up on the lending and the lending criteria,” he said. “I have committed to Atira for a couple of years.”
According to Fung, Atira has been working on the space for the past month and the doors open at the end of the month.
“Our goal was to get rolling in there as soon as possible,” he said. “We are dealing with a group where there is never a day where there isn’t a need to find good-quality housing.”
While this initiative provides an opportunity to allow the society to assist people at risk of homeless in the short term, Fung said he’s willing to look at long-term solutions.
As a parent of three children, Fung said the need for housing for mothers and children is something that resonates with him.
You can read the original story here.
© The Record (New Westminster) 2009