The Alberta government is investing $112 million for the construction of interim housing for Albertans who lost their homes when the community of Jasper was decimated by wildfire three months ago.
Seniors and Social Services Minister Jason Nixon made the funding announcement during a news conference Monday, signalling the construction of hundreds of modular housing units to help residents remain in their home community during the prolonged rebuild.
Nixon described the funding announcement as a significant step in rebuilding Jasper “so that it is stronger than ever.”
He said a severe lack of housing in the mountain town remains a major barrier to recovery.
“It is crucial that Jasperites who come back to Jasper during this rebuild process have somewhere to live.”
The bulk of the funding announced Monday will be used to construct 250 modular homes within the Jasper townsite.
The new homes will be available for essential service workers and support service workers, and other eligible Jasper residents who lost their homes.
Work on the pre-fabricated homes has already begun and the first residents should be able to move as early as January, Nixon said.
The homes will be offered at or near market rent, with the Alberta government as the landlord, Nixon said. Details on anticipated rental costs will be released soon, he said.
The homes will be permanent and fully serviced. Nixon said the homes will be of high quality and be developed into neighbourhoods with proper streetscapes and landscaping. It’s still being determined how many of the interim
housing units will be single occupancy and how many will be designed for families.
Once recovery in Jasper is complete, the province will sell the properties on the open market. Even after the community has recovered from the fire, the properties will still be needed to help address long-standing housing shortages in the mountain community, Nixon said.
He said he hopes the plan will alleviate some of Jasper’s long-term housing challenges. Housing inventory has been long constrained by the community’s relatively remote location and by constraints on construction within national parks, he said.
“The goal of these 250 units is to provide housing to people in Jasper that lost their homes so that we can take the time to rebuild the community appropriately,” Nixon said.
“We have to stress, there was already a shortage of housing in Jasper, and so that adds some level of a challenge here.
“The work that we’re doing here today is to be able to deal with the immediate need of losing one-third of residences in the town.”
A planning document shared by the Municipality of Jasper shows that a handful of potential sites on the far northern and southern edges of the townsite have been identified for the temporary housing units.e.”
The funding announced Monday will also be used to construct 25 modular homes in Hinton for displaced residents of Pine Grove Senior Citizens Manor in Jasper, which was lost to the fire.
The pre-fabricated homes will be offered as affordable housing units once the manor is reconstructed and seniors are able to return home to Jasper, Nixon said.
The units will be built on land next to the Pine Valley Seniors Lodge in Hinton. The land was given to the Alberta Social Housing Corporation by the Town of Hinton.
Work on the sites is expected to begin in January and the first seniors are expected to begin moving in as early as April 2025, the province said.
While various contractors may be brought in, Nixon said the province will act as the sole builder with the hopes that will further streamline the development process.
He said the province has been working closely with the federal government to expedite the permitting process for construction to proceed within the park boundaries.
“We hope that they will participate, but we think this is an important enough issue that we will move forward,” Nixon said of the federal government.
“We have some indication they may have more to say in the days to come. But we can’t wait any longer for that conversation to take place.”
In a statement Monday, Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault said Ottawa welcomes the investment in Jasper’s recovery efforts.
He encouraged the province to submit claims for the project to the Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements, which provides financial assistance to provincial and territorial governments following natural disasters.
Boissonnault said he planned to meet later Monday with Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland to discuss how the federal government can continue to assist the community.
The wildfire in late July destroyed 800 housing units. In all, 358 of Jasper’s 1,113 structures were destroyed.
The Insurance Bureau of Canada estimates the fire caused at least $880 million in insured damages, making it the costliest event in national park history.
The $880 million total is thought to be the ninth highest natural disaster insurance payout total in Canadian history.
During Monday’s news conference, Mayor Richard Ireland expressed his gratitude for the housing project.
He said the new homes will offer a sense of stability to a community still struggling to recover from the devastation caused by the flames.
“This funding is so much more than just a financial boost,” he said. “It is a veritable lifeline for so many of our residents.”
