Provincial Government announces new Social Housing Property Manager for Prince Rupert

Some changes are coming to the direction of social housing in Prince Rupert, with the announcement of last week of a new approach to service delivery of housing requirements in the city.

On Friday, The British Columbia government announced that an agreement had been reached with a Victoria based First Nations Housing Society, with the government announcing that  M'akola Housing Society had been selected to operate a number of social housing locations in the city.

The M'akola Group of Societies was incorporated in February of 1984 in Victoria. Known at that time as the "Victoria Native Indian Housing Society", the Society changed their name to Makola Housing Society in April of 1988 and since that time have taken on an expanded role in social housing initiatives across the
province.

Previous to Friday's announcement of their expanded role on the North Coast, they were the operators of the Muks-Kum-Ol Housing Society in Prince Rupert and Terrace, operating 56 units in Prince Rupert.

Their expansion in Prince Rupert, comes after the Society was selected by the Provincial Government after responding to the July 2013 expression of interest request by the BC government.

With Friday's announcement, M'akola Housing Society will provide property management and administration services for 267 units of the following Prince Rupert public housing properties.

Mariposa Gardens on Hays Cove, Camarillo Lane and Seville Road (84 units)

Pineridge Terrace on Summit Avenue (37 units)

Harbour View Gardens on McKay Street and Kootenay Avenue (100 units)

Kootenay Place located on Kootenay Avenue  (10 units)

And Sunset Villa Apartments on 3rd Avenue West (36 units)

The M'akola Housing Society was selected based on their 30 years of experience in providing safe, affordable housing to Aboriginal residents throughout the province. The agreement will be administered through the Aboriginal Housing Management Association and will be based under the Aboriginal self-management model for social housing.

In 2013, the British Columbia government had invested more than 1.1 million dollars to provide subsidized housing and rent supplements for more than 440 households in Prince Rupert.

No financial details of the arrangement were released as part of the Friday announcement.

Details on Friday's announcement  can be found from this media release from the BC Government.

You can learn more about the M'akola Group of Societies from the wide range of information available on their website.

We have more items on housing in the Northwest available on our Housing and Real Estate archive page.