Moosomin close to hitting housing goal after offering $30K incentive to builders
CBC
An official with a town in southeastern Saskatchewan says its plan to offer $30,000 cheques to anyone building homes in the community is paying off.
Moosomin, about 210 kilometres as the crow flies east of Regina, announced the cash initiative in August to attract development to the community, which is in desperate need of housing.
Town economic development officer Casey McCormac says the program has resulted in a flurry of construction, including two 12-unit apartment complexes and a six-unit building. Building permits have also been issued for two houses and a basement suite.
"I think it's really cool," McCormac said.
"It definitely shows that Moosomin was in need of this grant to help accelerate our housing needs, and it shows that people want to move to Moosomin and that there is a shortage of housing."
Moosomin received $1 million from the federal government's housing accelerator fund for its program. The town gives builders $30,000 for the first new unit, plus $8,000 per additional unit for multi-unit housing on the same property. Builders receive the money once occupancy permits are issued.
Construction has started on the homes, but no one has moved in yet.
McCormac said the federal funding program was flexible and the town wanted to try something different.
"We thought it was a good incentive and were hoping it would make headlines, which it obviously did," she said.
"We had to hit three units in order to continue our funding, and we have building permits for 33."
Moosomin Mayor Murray Gray told CBC's The 306 that the town's goal for now is 43 homes — meaning there are only 10 spots left for people to lay claim to.
"I think in the next couple of months you'll find that we will be out of spots," said Gray.
His advice for other towns and cities struggling with building enough housing is to "think outside the box."
"I just think that the same old, same old is not going to attract developers, especially."
Miles Purden started noticing woodpeckers taking aim at his home in North Kamloops in 2020.
Flu cases are on the rise across the province, while immunization uptake is the lowest it's been in more than a decade, two infectious disease experts say.
At his ranch in Black Pines, just outside Kamloops, B.C., Ed LeBourdais knows how to get his bulls' attention.
Anxiety is the most common reason Island students are turning to well-being teams in schools, says a social worker involved with a P.E.I. support program.
Pauline Frost, chief of the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation in northern Yukon, usually looks forward to late January, when the winter sun returns to her Arctic village.
This story is part of Welcome to Canada, a CBC News series about immigration told through the eyes of the people who have experienced it.
Will it be sticker shock for Toronto homeowners again this year?
Researchers at the University of Waterloo say they've made a breakthrough in introducing a new trait into bacteria found in wastewater, giving them the ability to break down microplastics.
Aircraft dropped water and fire retardant on steep hills, and ground firefighting efforts were stepped up in a bid to stem the eastward spread of the Palisades wildfire in Los Angeles on Saturday, amid new predictions of wind gusts that could hit 110 kilometres per hour.
Seven people are in custody following a raid on a home on Mundy Pond Road in St. John's on Saturday.
Four people were taken to hospital, at least one with serious injuries, after a fire early Saturday in a duplex in Lower Sackville, N.S.