Residents worried about possible sale of low-income housing

Province approaching municipalities to gauge interest in purchasing SHC stock

People in the province are growing concerned the Saskatchewan Party government will sell off lowincome housing properties it owns through the Saskatchewan Housing Corporation (SHC).

Fred Dulmage from Lemberg is concerned two SHC-owned facilities in his small community could be sold. He said a meeting between town officials and SHC recently took place where the topic came up.

“I hope they realize these are real people’s lives they’re dealing with,” he said, adding there are nine senior tenants in town living in SHC units.

Social Services Minister Tina Beaudry-Mellor said the province is approaching municipalities to gauge the interest those communities have in purchasing SHC stock, noting there are a number of vacant or “significantly vacant” units.

“We’re far away from any conversations about how tenants may be affected at this time,” she said.

The 2016 SHC annual report said, “Higher vacancy rates indicate that there are sufficient rental units available to meet current demand and the emerging demands of continued population growth.”

In May, Beaudry-Mellor said there are some SHC units with “chronic vacancies” in communities with fewer than 300 people, and, “Those are some that we will look at selling, if we can sell them at all. But we would certainly like, if they’re going to be chronically vacant as they continue to be, we’d like to get rid of those, for sure.”

Dulmage questions why the community would be asked to pay for a building it already owns.

“This is not (Premier) Brad Wall’s money, or the Saskatchewan Party’s money. This money is the people of Saskatchewan’s,” he said, adding he is concerned tenants living in SHC properties will have to pay higher rents or move to another community if the units are sold.

SHC owns 18,232 units located throughout the province. Fortyfive per cent of those are for seniors, while 33 per cent are designated for families.

NDP MLA Ryan Meili said the uncertainty about potential sales of SHC property is causing concern for tenants.

“It’s kind of hard to understand why they would want to do this, when you look at the units they’ve actually been doing really well,” Meili said. “We don’t know the list of towns, we don’t know