Affordable housing units announced for Nova Scotia and New Brunswick

Dozens of new affordable and energy efficient, sustainable homes are coming to the Maritimes.

Darren Fisher, the Liberal member of parliament for Dartmouth–Cole Harbour, made the announcement alongside Colchester Deputy-Mayor Geoff Stewart, who is also a vice-president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

The new units are funded in part by the federal government's $300 million contribution to the Sustainable Affordable Housing Initiative.

“We have an awful lot of precariously housed people here in Dartmouth, and in Cole Harbour, and all of Nova Scotia and we are seeing it in rural areas as well," said Fisher.

Forty-four affordable housing units will be built in Dartmouth, N.S., with $145,000 to be spent on evaluating energy efficient measures for new construction projects.

An abandoned hospital in Bath, N.B., will be converted into 20 to 25 apartments, following a $20,000 feasibility study.

More than $22,000 is being pledged to assess the energy efficiency of 12 affordable homes in Miramichi, N.B., and $25,000 will help jump-start 24 energy efficient affordable housing units on rural land in Blacks Harbour, N.B.

Affordable housing advocate Jim Graham said escalating energy costs are crushing, especially for people living with low incomes.

“Affordable housing today is more than just the rent," said Graham. “If you are able to provide housing as net zero, that is producing as much energy as the occupants are producing, that’s got to be the way to go."

Fisher said the federally funded project will feature retrofitting buildings in energy-efficient ways.

"You can take an old hotel that is no longer commercially successful, or has closed as we have seen the past," said Fisher. "We can take that and retrofit that and it’s also important to retrofit in an energy-efficient way as well."

There is no exact timeline for when these units will be finished.