The Prince George Metis Housing Society is selling another two of its houses, with a price tag of nearly $380,000, The Citizen has learned.
Last year, the housing society made a similar move, selling a pair of its houses in College Heights.
Prince George Metis Housing Society president Barb Ward-Burkitt, contacted Wednesday for comment, wasn't prepared to make a comment until Friday afternoon. "I have nothing until then," she said Thursday morning.
The College Heights houses sold last year -- which had a price tag of $390,000 -- were done so to meet a funding gap for 20 low-income houses that were no longer eligible for government subsidies, B.C. Housing officials said at the time.
The Prince George Metis Housing society owns more than 160 housing units in the city, including single-detached homes and apartments.
The society has an annual operating budget of nearly $2.4 million. In 2009, B.C. Housing provided $1.74 million of the society's revenue through rental subsidies, according to the society's financial statements.
The housing units owned by the society are held in groups under separate mortgages. The mortgages for the first 20 homes were paid off last year. Another 20 mortgages were paid off this year.
Last year, B.C. Housing officials noted that the loss of subsidies meant there was now a funding gap between the revenue generated by the rent from the first 20 units and the cost to maintain them. "By selling two of the houses, the board plans to reinvest these funds in order to continue subsidizing the rent on the remaining 18 houses," B.C. Housing said last year.
It's not clear if the same circumstances apply with the latest two houses put up for sale.
One is a vacant four-bedroom house at 169 South Quinn priced at $179,900. The other is a three-bedroom house at 3713 Winslow Drive listed at $199,000. Both homes are listed on the B.C. Land Titles directory as owned by the Prince George Metis Housing Society.
The society has experienced a considerable amount of controversy in the past two years.
Before Christmas 2009, the 25-year-old society had its board and senior management replaced in the midst of a B.C. Housing review over operational complaints and a forensic audit.
The review revealed a number of problems with the society's management, including
nepotism, poor tenant selection practices, poor maintenance practices and lack of accountability to the community. However, the B.C. government decided not to pursue charges because, it said, the issues were resolved without the need to involve the RCMP.
The Citizen also uncovered in 2010, that two properties held by another aboriginal society for 12 years -- one of which was turned partially into a daycare with the help of nearly $900,000 in federal funds -- ended up in the hands of a numbered company following a transaction that appeared to violate B.C. Society Act rules. The numbered company's owner was the former, long-time Metis housing society manager.
The Metis housing society was leasing office space in the building, and the province later helped the society purchase the building.
In the summer of 2010, a new board was elected to the society, and a new executive director was named.
At the time, Ward-Burkitt, elected to the new board, pledged a new tone for the society, one of openness and transparency.
Less than six months later, before the end of the year, the new executive director was gone.
Ward-Burkitt would reveal little of the decision to replace the latest executive director, citing the confidentiality of personnel matters.
