Housing

Housing is a fundamental human right. However, our growing community struggles to find housing that is safe and meets our needs. Homalco has a small land base and limited houses available, but responding to this growing need is top priority. We have a strong desire for housing that is safe, well cared for, and available for members who want to live in Homalco. 

The Homalco First Nation Housing Program works with community members to:

• Maintain social houses
• Apply for new social housing 
• Apply for social housing funding and grants 
• Help private homeowners find available funding to keep their homes

Housing on IR#9 includes

• 53 Band-owned units 
• 18 Section 95 Social Housing Units (CMHC)
• 14 private homes

It helps us do our job properly if everyone pays their rent. If you are having a hard time paying your rent, please reach out. We will work with you respectfully to make a plan to bring your rent and utility payments up to date. 

In this fiscal year, the council has worked to improve our policy. The housing policy has been updated and members have come in to sign their tenancy agreements. It’s important to have the rental agreement signed each fiscal year. and building an open communication with tenants to ensure services are provided.  The housing program ensures all staff that are employed by the band sign an assignment of wages form to ensure we are collecting full payment of rent.  Tenants in the community that have different financial benefits are coming in to pay their rent and working with some tenants the importance of paying rent. 

If you have concerns or require repairs in your home you can contact the Housing Manager directly who will walk you through the process.

The Housing Manager will help you fill out a Housing Repair Form to make a record of the problem and ensure services are provided.  If you have an emergency, like a hot water tank leak, we will deal with it immediately. Less urgent repairs may take longer but we are always working to make our response time faster. 

Homalco is putting processes in place to extend the life of our housing assets so that, in the future, we can focus on building more homes. 

The Housing Manager, as well as the Administrator, are available to help apply for major renovations and to work with funders such as Indigenous Services, CMHC or BC Housing to complete the necessary paperwork.

Working with members in the community volunteering is also very important. Each season we provide the roll off bins to help tenants declutter around their units to ensure we don’t attract wildlife and to help minimize  large amounts of garbage building up around each unit.  The housing program will be continuing in the future seasons to keep our community clean. 

Safety measures  for our members are vitally important. We work closely with the Campbell River Fire Department to install smoke alarms and ensure all fire extinguishers are brought up to code for the safety of the tenants living in the community.

• Homalco Housing Policy and Procedures 
• Homalco Housing Rental Agreement 
• Homalco Occupant Covenant Form