Watchdog for affordable housing hired

By Dan Hilborn
Published April 25, 2004


A former Burnaby school trustee has been hired by the Co-op Housing Federation of B.C. to help campaign for more affordable housing during the upcoming federal election.

Barb Fisher, who has lived in the Misty Ridge Co-op on Burnaby Mountain for the past 15 years, said she looks forward to holding the politicians feet to the fire.

"I am the poster child for co-ops," said Fisher, who credits the low cost housing alternative for helping her cope with the challenges of being a single mother during the late 1980s and early '90s.

"I was a single mom pregnant with my second child when I moved into my first co-op unit," she said, adding that the subsidized housing helped her to raise two children when she would have otherwise been forced to live in substandard housing or else move out of the Lower Mainland.

"This co-op has supported me through many phases of my life," she said.

Among the many problems currently facing the affordable housing movement are the lack of federal funds for co-op housing, and how the provincial government spends the money it does receive from Ottawa.

"The federal government hasn't done anything substantial in building co-operative housing for a good number of years. The money coming from the feds to the province isn't going into co-ops, it's going to seniors and those are more like house services than it is housing."

Fisher intends to find out what the candidates in the upcoming election intend to do about co-op funding, and then publicize her findings with the voters. She also believes that her own political experience will help pin down the politicians.

"I know how they think," she said. "If they say they can do anything, then I'll ask how do you do it. Co-op housing is a wonderful concept and there should be way more of them."

Among the projects she intends to undertake during the election include a survey of people who live below the federal poverty lines known as the Low Income Cut-Off rate, plus a survey of how many people are on the waiting lists for co-op housing.

Fisher said that her own co-op housing complex currently has a waiting list of 200 names, and that is not unusual for the Lower Mainland.

Fisher noted that if the federal election is not called before the summer, she will have a short leave of absence from her work with the co-op housing group and may return to the Burnaby Arts