We welcomed nearly 120 housing leaders to this year’s Northern RENT event in Prince George with our partner, the Homelessness Services Association of BC.
The Northern RENT event started off with a greeting from Prince George Mayor Lyn Hall, who spoke about the challenges and opportunities for housing in the city and stressed that partnerships are a major key to success in this process. Another major highlight from the event was the lunchtime panel discussion, which was focused on strategies for effective municipal engagement and public consultation to support new affordable housing developments. The panel also shared how the BCNPHA-HSABC project Build Homes Not Barriers can help with the community engagement process.
The panel was moderated by BCNPHA Board Chair Kevin Albers, with panelists Kathi Heim (Executive Director of Prince George & Elizabeth Fry Society), Tristin Deveau (Planner, Sustainable Community Development, City of Prince George), Amy Wong (Director, Regional Development, Northern Region, BC Housing); and Peer-Daniel Krause, (Policy Manager, BCNPHA).
If you want to build more affordable housing, get out there and knock on doors now; engage community now. If you wait until 2020 to start, it will be too late. Make sure your projects are aligned with your values and mission, and don’t be afraid to go back to the drawing board… several times.” – Elizabeth Fry Society’s Kathi Heim
Thank you to all of our delegates, partners and sponsors for helping us make this year’s Northern RENT a great success! The Northern RENT presentations will be available soon (in pdf format). If you presented in Prince George and would like your presentation to be uploaded, please contact justin@bcnpha.ca.
We are looking forward to greeting everyone at our Interior BC RENT in Kelowna on September 9, 2019!
For more information about our regional events, go to bcnpha.ca/rents