Today, it’s a grassy lot on Hippie Hill with fluffy dandelions and a pair of “No Dumping” signs.
But someday soon, the lot at 609 Second Avenue in Daajing Giids will be home to Yew Wood Place — a 17-unit apartment building where most tenants will pay affordable rents subsidized by BC Housing.
“It’s coming, but we don’t know when,” says Barb Rowsell, executive director of the non-profit Daajing Giids Housing Societies. Rowsell said her best guess is it will take about two years.
Once built, it will be one of six affordable housing projects run by the Daajing Giids Housing Societies.
Yew Wood Place will be a long, L-shaped building with two floors. Inside, there will be 15 single-bedroom, one double-bedroom, and one triple-bedroom apartment. It will also have a shared laundry room, a common room, a storage room, and a room for bikes and scooters.
One side of the building will face neighbouring houses. The other side and back of the building will be sheltered by tree-topped hillsides, while the front has a view down to the ocean.
The City Centre supermarket and downtown Daajing Giids will be a 15-20 minute walk or one zippy bike ride downhill.
Rowsell said the basic design, which consists mostly of single-bedroom apartments, is unlikely to change since that’s what is needed most.
Rowsell can’t remember the last time a family applied for affordable housing in Daajing Giids — nearly every applicant is a single senior, and just a few are couples.
“They are people that have worked hard all their lives and paid their bills,” she said, but most have found themselves priced out by rising rents and other living costs.
According to estimates from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), the average price for a single-bedroom apartment in Daajing Giids is now $1,430 a month.
Rowsell said although the priority goes to people who live in south-end Haida Gwaii so they are close to existing friends, family, and healthcare supports, the Daajing Giids Housing Societies have tenants and applicants from Old Massett to Tlell and Sandspit.
“We have people from every community on the islands,” she said.
The Daajing Giids Housing Societies rent some apartments at market price. BC Housing policy is to have a mix of affordable and market rents, which helps cover operating costs.
Rowsell said recently they are getting more applications from seniors who can afford market rent but can’t find a smaller place to buy after selling the large home where they raised their kids.
“In the city, they would buy or rent a condo or townhouse to downsize,” she said.
“But we’re kind of the only option.”
Rowsell said architects are still working on a final design for Yew Wood Place, but she hopes to see one big change.
“I think we really need to push to get an elevator put in,” she said.
“We didn’t get that at Alder House, and that’s a big mistake.”
Ḵal Naay, or Alder House, is a 19-unit apartment owned by BC Housing and run by the Daajing Giids Heritage Housing Society that opened in March 2021.
Unlike Yew Wood Place, which is only intended to offer affordable housing, Alder House has its own 24/7 staffing support, as well as additional support from Northern Health staff and aims to support people at risk of homelessness.
Alder House runs on a “housing first” principle, meaning that unlike in the past, tenants with drug or alcohol problems don’t have to be completely sober to stay.
“It’s working, that’s really an astonishing thing,” said Rowsell. It takes time, but some people have managed to quit.
“It’s really making an impact, having that stability in their lives.”
Alder House has two floors and no elevator. Rowsell said it’s too bad it wasn’t built with one because, so far, most of the tenants and applicants are much older than either BC Housing or the Daajing Giids Housing Societies expected.
“We’re finding we have to turn away more and more people because they can’t manage stairs,” she said.
BC Housing green-lighted the Yew Wood Place project in March and recently awarded it a grant of nearly $500,000 for pre-development costs. Only one other housing non-profit from northern B.C. received the grant, although several more applied.
In 2020, with funding from BC Housing, Gwaii Trust, the M’akola Housing Society and the Aboriginal Housing Management Association (AHMA), the Daajing Giids Housing Societies converted a small office building into a four-unit affordable housing building called Cedar Place.
Now, BC Housing is committing to build Yew Wood Place, the land for which was donated by M’akola and AMHA and consolidated into a single lot with support from the Village of Daajing Giids council.
Greg Martin, president of the Daajing Giids Housing Societies and a former mayor of the village, praised BC Housing for its ongoing support.
“It’s a very complicated bureaucracy, but they are really good people,” he said.
“Their hearts are in the right place, and their wallets are in the right place.”
Correction: The Daajing Giids Housing Societies manage 24/7 housing support for Alder House, and have additional support from visiting Northern Health staff. An earlier version of this story mistakenly reported that the 24/7 housing support was provided by Northern Health. The Haida Gwaii News regrets the error.