REGINA – Tuesday morning twenty-four new family rental suites officially opened in the Coronation Park area of Regina.
“Once you get into your own home, that’s a dream for many people in Regina,” says Regina Walsh Acres MLA Warren Steinley who was there on behalf of Social Services Minister and Minister for the Saskatchewan Housing Corporation June Draude.
Since November 2007, 309 affordable rental units have been added to Regina’s landscape.
However, when it comes to housing the Government of Saskatchewan admits more needs to be done.
“When you create housing anywhere in Regina there’s a trickle down effect, where more people can go into these houses and then they’ll open up more spaces available to other people, but housing is an issue still in Regina,” says Steinley.
The Coronation Park development consists of 2 two-bedroom and 22 three-bedroom townhouse units, but not everyone is eligible to call one of them home.
“You have to be working, you have to be employed, but there’s a ceiling to the household income that you can have at $52, 000,” says Edmund Bellegarde, Chairman of Silver Safe Holdings Ltd.
Regina Anti-Poverty Ministry Advocate Peter Gilmer says the rental housing development is a step in the right direction.
“We need to build on that with social housing and rent controls and also adequate income support for low income people to make sure they are in a position to be able to afford their rent,” says Gilmer.
The total cost of the rental suite project was about $5.5 million.
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