The province hasn’t announced any new temporary modular housing projects since 2021. A unit in disrepair sits in a storage yard in Langley, B.C.Frances Bula/The Globe and Mail
Eight years ago, policy makers with the new NDP government in B.C. and the City of Vancouver were enthusiastic about temporary modular housing: a new, fast and relatively inexpensive way to provide shelter for the growing numbers of homeless people.
The idea was to put projects up quickly on land awaiting development, then, when construction moved ahead, to move the units to other vacant land. The province committed $66-million for 600 units in Vancouver in 2017, which became part of $291-million for the whole province. By 2021, 1,900 temporary apartments were sent to 22 communities.
But the promise of that experiment has waned, as it turned out the units are expensive to disassemble, store, ship, upgrade to current building-code standards and for colder climates, and re-assemble.
The province hasn’t announced any new temporary modular housing projects since 2021, although it continues to fund projects that consist of permanent modular housing, built to new and different standards.
Now it’s unclear what will happen with the hundreds of temporary units from the original wave. The first cluster of decommissioned units has been sitting in storage for four years, while others appear to be headed for a second round of use only with extensive and expensive renovations.
At least one B.C. city that’s been offered the units that were removed from a Vancouver site in 2021 is hesitating to take them on.
“There are too many questions,” said Ron Paull, mayor of the Interior city of Quesnel, in a recent interview. He is eager for new supportive housing, but dubious about the modular units from Little Mountain, currently stored in a lot on Fraser Highway in Langley.
It’s unclear what will happen with the hundreds of temporary units from the original wave.Frances Bula/The Globe and Mail
Mr. Paull is concerned about a range of issues, from whether the old units are suited to Quesnel’s climate to what they look like.
“Until we get the answers to some of our questions, we’re not going to be at the front of that parade.”
A year after the NDP took office in 2017, then-housing minister Selina Robinson said she was “blown away” by the potential of the quickly built units – similar to work-camp housing, but nicer looking on the outside and stackable to three storeys – as an emergency solution for the growing homelessness crisis.
By 2018, temporary modular-housing blocks had sprouted up in parking lots and vacant development sites in Vancouver. Other cities followed.
But it turned out that moving the units when the time came was costly. Finding somewhere to move them to in Vancouver was also difficult because the city wanted any available sites for permanent buildings.
BC Housing has said the used units could be moved to other communities. But that also is proving to be expensive, raising questions about how many years the province will get out of the temporary units it paid millions for.
A statement last week from the City of Vancouver acknowledged that the temporary units were a good, fast fix at the time and that studies have shown that residents benefitted, but said they’re not as easily re-used as first thought.
“Due to a multitude of factors (e.g. code changes, site conditions), these TMH buildings will likely need to undergo retrofits before each relocation,” the statement says.
Two Vancouver clusters disassembled so far – the 46 units on the Little Mountain development site from 2018 to 2021, and 98 units on the downtown block meant to house the new Vancouver Art Gallery from 2018 to 2024 – were left in rough shape. Original estimates for disassembling and moving them were in the $5-million range.
The first cluster of decommissioned units has been sitting in storage for four years.Frances Bula/The Globe and Mail
The Little Mountain units, which originally cost $7.4-million, have been sitting in the Langley storage facility since 2021, perched on wooden blocks and wrapped in heavy-duty plastic that has shredded in places after years outside. There are signs of mold in the walls. BC Housing has paid about $600,000 to store them for the last four years, according to the agency’s financial statements.
Mr. Paull said Quesnel has asked many questions about what condition the units are in, whether they are insulated enough for a climate that’s much colder than Vancouver, whether they meet the standards for the current B.C. building code and, particularly, what they look like.
The project would be going right onto Quesnel’s main street: “It’s downtown action central, and it’s high visibility,” he said.
While Mr. Paull said he appreciated the efforts of BC Housing on his city’s behalf, he wondered whether it wouldn’t be actually cheaper and better to simply build something permanent.
Kamloops has indicated its willingness to take the units that were removed from the Vancouver Art Gallery site. The units, which cost $15.1-million, were shipped to the town of Barriere mid-2024 for renovations. Kamloops staff and BC Housing say they won’t be ready for occupancy until early 2026, indicating a substantial amount of work is being done.
BC Housing said in a statement last week that it does not have any numbers yet on the cost of renovations for either cluster: “Once the full cost of the project is confirmed, more details can be provided.”
Carmin Mazzotta, Kamloops’s acting community and culture director, said the units will need better insulation for winter, but also better cooling for the region’s intensely hot summers.
A third cluster of temporary modulars, stored in Penticton for two years after their use there, are headed to Vernon after expensive renovations.
The next temporary modular housing project to be disassembled in Vancouver is on Powell Street, called Aneki.
That will still leave 578 apartments in nine other clusters around Vancouver, as well as the 40 units that the city opened up of its own in 2017 at Terminal and Main. Vancouver is planning to use that site to build market-rate rental apartments.