A board member for a Bancroft housing group says government support is needed to get a planned project into the ground.
North Hastings Non-Profit Housing Corporation hopes to build a 30-unit apartment building. It would be on land it owns at Woodview Lane and Cleak Avenue.
Board member Wilma Brethour says she has meetings planned later this summer with MP Shelby Kramp-Neuman and MPP Ric Bresee.
She says the corporation has the land, but not the money, to build on its own. She hopes all levels of government will work quickly to help it access funding for a rent-geared-to-income project.
“Even if we can raise some money of our own, we’ll still need that support from all levels of government,” she says. “We have land, we’re willing to use it.”
Brethour says Bancroft has a housing crisis. She says about 700 people are on the waiting list for rent-geared-to-income homes run by the non-profit. That includes homes on Woodview Lane and local seniors’ apartments.
Bancroft Mayor Paul Jenkins says a meeting he had with Corporation officials recently to discuss the project went well. He said the town supports the project and he used the meeting to direct the officials to programs they could apply to, such as the federal Rapid Housing Initiative.