ELK POINT - The Regional Housing Strategy sessions conducted by Chelsey Rudolph and Nathalie Schwind of ISL Engineering and Land Services are winding down this week, with a pair of pop-up sessions held at the Midweek Farmers Markets in St. Paul last week and the Elk Point Farmers Market on Thursday.
The pop-ups yielded “good conversation” according to the two, who added that “there seemed to be a lot of emphasis on supportive housing, physical and mental health an, and addiction, and transportation to larger centres for services they don’t have there, it’s a real struggle. They want that support.”
Rudolph and Schwind are working on a regional housing strategy for the Town and County of St. Paul, Town of Elk Point and Summer Village of Horseshoe Bay that will outline the current housing situation and help to develop an action plan to create and maintain affordable, safe and suitable housing options for area resident.
They gathered information in housing challenges and ideas for improvement at open houses in February of this year and prepared a draft regional housing strategy and are now seeking feedback on the strategy at the pop-ups and through an online survey that started at the end of July. Copies of the survey were also available at last week’s pop-up sessions.
Among their findings, they learned that young singles and young families have serious difficulty not only with finding affordable housing but paying utilities. It was noted that in Elk Point, some once affordable apartments have been turned into condominiums and others are showing their age after years of housing transient workers, making it even more difficult to access affordable housing.
It was also noted that seniors cannot afford the rent, “let alone the utilities,” one visitor to Thursday’s session stated, with no affordable places to rent that were in reasonably good condition.
Rudolph and Schwind said the information they received at the pop-ups gave them “a clearer viewpoint” on what is needed.
“It takes time and it takes the creation of a framework. Now we can start envisioning that framework. There’s a lot to be done. This is the first step in a long process of improving housing, and housing is part of a system that has to do with the quality of life.”
