Vancouver School Board urged to build modular housing on land it owns

The Vancouver School Board (VSB) is looking into the possibility of building modular housing on some of its land.

School Board Trustee Estrellita Gonzalez says she will put forward a motion to provide modular housing, similar to that provided by the City of Vancouver, for students who are “housing insecure.”

“If we have kids who are housing insecure and it’s preventing them from graduating, then I think we need to step up,” Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez says half of all kids who deal with the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) don’t graduate and safe housing will help those children get their educations back on track.

“We heard the stories of kids staying in hotel rooms because there’s nowhere else to put them,” Gonzalez said.

“We have the one thing you need to be able to build something, and that’s land — almost $8 billion of assessed value of land in the VSB. That’s a lot of land, and it’s a public asset. And I feel those public assets should be leveraged to actually meet the needs of children.”