Dale Anderson, Housing Policy Branch, British Columbia
Dale Anderson from the Housing Policy Branch in British Columbia provides this week’s guest blog post.
BC’s Housing Policy Branch develops housing policy on behalf of the British Columbia provincial government. We work in three primary areas: social housing; affordable market housing; and strata (condo) housing. The branch also serves as liaison with BC Housing, the Crown corporation responsible for implementing the Province’s housing direction. We also work closely with the two other branches that, with Housing Policy, make up the Office of Housing and Construction Standards: the Residential Tenancy Branch, and the Building and Safety Standards Branch.
Not surprisingly given the importance of housing to individual households, communities and wider society, our work encompasses a wide range of policy issues. Some of the issues we’re interested in include:
- The most effective strategies to prevent and address homelessness.
- How depreciation reports and other measures help strata (condo) corporations better manage their common assets over the long term.
- How best to structure rent supplement programs, to assist lower-income households.
- How investor-owned, rented strata units affect the rental and the homeownership markets.
- Housing affordability, including assessing how laneway and carriage housing, or access to good transit, affect affordability.
- The preparedness of our communities and housing stock for the increase of seniors we will see in the coming years, and how best to support ‘aging in place.’
- Where and how manufactured home parks best provide affordable housing options.
- General economic conditions and demographic changes affecting housing.
The Housing Policy Branch would like better connections with researchers across BC (and elsewhere) doing housing and related research, to support us in our work. Your research can help improve housing policy in British Columbia, so please consider sharing it with us. Or, as readers of this blog might say, ‘mobilize your knowledge’ by sending it to a group of policy analysts interested in learning from you. We’d be pleased to receive summaries of your research findings, copies of your research, links to your websites, or notice of public presentations you do. You can reach us at housing.policy@gov.bc.ca.
Dale Anderson is a Senior Policy Advisor in the Housing Policy Branch. She can be reached at Dale.Anderson@gov.bc.ca. More information about the Housing Policy Branch and the Office of Housing and Constructions Standards is available at: www.housing.gov.bc.ca.