The B.C. Non-Profit Housing Association is holding a conference aimed at educating and training non-profit housing societies and to encourage them to work closer together.
The Northern B.C. Regional Education and Trade Show, which is being held at the Ramada on Thursday, is part of a series of smaller conferences the association is holding outside of the Lower Mainland aimed at improving communication between itself and its members. It also wants to learn in greater detail about issues that are unique to the North, such as higher food costs.
"There's a lot of homelessness issues going on in the North, some of it related to resource development and opportunity coming into the region," said Tony Roy, the association's executive director. "We want to find out ways, not to just work together on that, but to work with municipalities and resource developers to help share opportunity as it comes into the region to make sure that those who are most in need aren't shunted aside."
The main focus of the conference is education. Attendees will be able take classes in forming a non- profit housing society, making a capital plan and becoming more energy efficient. There will also be presentations about the latest housing trends in the north and research about housing rental rates and affordability. The two keynote speakers will be Roy, who will be discussing changes within the association, and Greg Halseth, a UNBC geography professor and Canada research chair in rural and small town studies.
The secondary goal is to encourage collaboration between non-profit housing societies.
"There's not a lot of new money coming into affordable housing, but we can create efficiencies within the system by collaborating, so this is the first step towards doing that," Roy said.
Roy said he saw an example of the type of collaboration that's possible when he last visited Prince George last year.
"I ran into a bunch of them who were contracting out their painting services and we're already talking about trying to find efficiencies by having staff people that they could share to do that kind of work," he said, adding that it's when groups get together that those types of efficiencies can be found.
The conference will end with virtual tours of local non-profit housing facilities at the Native Friendship Centre, including those operated by the centre, Elizabeth Fry and B.C. Housing.