Housing

house icon Housing in our community

Housing plays an important role in our community's health, safety and well-being -– we want West Kelowna to be a place that people can call home.

To achieve this, the City uses the housing continuum concept to facilitate various housing types and tenures to meet residents' needs.

Housing continuum

The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation's housing continuum visually demonstrates the wide range of tenure options available in communities, from temporary emergency shelters for people experiencing homelessness, to permanent rental and home ownership. The intent is not to imply progression towards home ownership but rather to represent the full range of options that match people’s needs and preferences with appropriate forms of housing and supports (if needed). Key initiatives are underway across the region to meet various aspects of the continuum.

The City's role in supporting housing delivery

The City supports housing through several actions within its regulatory abilities. While housing demand factors are largely beyond local governments' controls, the City of West Kelowna supports our community's housing needs through:

  • Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF) initiatives
  • Land use outlined in the Official Community Plan that provides the direction of how we grow
  • Regulation that guides location and type of housing that can be built in the community
  • Policies and programs that support development of attainable and non-market housing options
  • Agency, non-profit and private sector collaboration to deliver much-needed housing supply
  • Provincial and federal government advocacy on a range of housing issues

The City also continues to work with BC Housing to establish attainable, longer-term transitional and supportive housing in West Kelowna and the Greater Westside. Our goal is to partner with the Province of B.C. and social agencies to support and increase safe, attainable and accessible housing opportunities that meet our diverse community needs. We are also collaborating with Westbank First Nation and BC Housing to determine viable land and facility opportunities to serve the Greater Westside.

info icon Policies to help protect affordable housing

Council has approved Rental Protection and Tenant Relocation Assistance and Manufactured Home Park Redevelopment policies, which:

  • Strengthen tenant protections beyond provincial standards
  • Specify available supplementary supports
  • Proactively outline redevelopment criteria to prevent the loss of purpose-built rental housing and mitigate the impacts on tenants.

The City's role in supporting tenants

The City helps in supporting tenants through policies intended to strengthen protections beyond the minimum standards in the provincial Residential Tenancy and Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Acts.

What is the Rental Protection and Tenant Relocation Policy?

The City’s Rental Protection and Tenant Relocation Assistance Policy establishes clear expectations 
for applicants proposing a Zoning Bylaw Amendment or Strata Conversion that would result in the 
redevelopment of existing purpose-built rental housing. The policy is intended to:

  • Protect the City’s supply of purpose-built rental housing
  • Reduce displacement impacts on tenants where redevelopment is proposed
  • Clarify requirements related to rental replacement and tenant relocation early in the 
    development approval process
  • Eligible tenants must fill out the Tenant Household Need Assessment Form
    • An eligible tenant is someone with a valid tenancy agreement at the time a complete application is received

What is the Manufactured Home Park Redevelopment Policy?

The Manufactured Home Park Redevelopment Policy establishes clear expectations for 
applicants proposing a Zoning Bylaw Amendment that would result in the redevelopment of an 
existing manufactured home park. The policy is intended to:

  • Reduce displacement impacts on residents where redevelopment is proposed; and
  • Clarify requirements related to resident relocation early in the development approval process.

West Kelowna Housing Resources

Resources are available to support housing service navigation, including help for community members who are unhoused.

Housing initiatives in West Kelowna

The City of West Kelowna has undertaken several studies to gather information and inform priorities for managing current need across the housing spectrum and prepare for future needs.

Assessments, strategies and identifier counts

The West Kelowna Housing Strategy explores policy tools and actions needed to address housing attainability and affordability, supply, and a diversity of types. It seeks to fill gaps in a coordinated approach involving municipal, provincial, and federal governments together with our community, housing providers and service groups. The final plan incorporates Council, stakeholder and community feedback and provides measurables for monitoring newly created housing units.

 

About the strategy

The Housing Strategy provides achievable and collaborative policies, strategies and actions to improve housing throughout our community. It builds on the Housing Needs Assessment and Unique Identifier Count.

The Housing Strategy outlines a roadmap for City action on housing. It also acknowledges that commitment and collaboration from the entire housing sector, including provincial and federal governments, non-profit providers, and private developers, are required to improve outcomes in our community. Successful outcomes also require ongoing, broader community support and engagement.

The four key directions

The Housing Strategy's Key Directions outline the actions intended to address the community’s housing needs related to supply and affordability, strengthen the City’s role in housing, and facilitate collaboration with other levels of government and the private and non-profit sectors. Each action is categorized based on level of impact, effort, and implementation timeframe:

  1. Create more opportunities for non-market housing.
  2. Protect and increase market rental housing.
  3. Create more opportunities for housing for under-served demographic needs, including seniors, people with disabilities, people experiencing homelessness, diverse household sizes, and others.
  4. Create more options for housing throughout the community through more diverse forms and densities.

How the Housing Strategy links to the Official Community Plan

West Kelowna’s Official Community Plan (OCP) describes the City’s long-term vision and includes objectives and policies to help direct growth. The Housing Strategy intends to complement the OCP's direction by providing high level guidance towards future policy and bylaw development to accommodate growth that meets our community’s diverse housing needs.

Housing continuum

The West Kelowna Housing Strategy identifies housing actions to improve housing diversity and options across the housing continuum.

The strategy explores policy tools and actions to help address issues, including attainability, supply, diverse types, needs and gaps across the continuum. A coordinated approach among municipal, provincial, and federal governments, the development community, community housing providers and other community service providers will ensure the Housing Strategy meets current and future residents' needs and confront affordability, supply, and diversity challenges.

A healthy housing system provides diverse types across the housing continuum, as shown in the graphic below. The continuum includes opportunities for safe and healthy housing to support an individual over the course of their life, recognizing that individual and family needs change over time. The housing continuum is not linear or progressive. 

The City's Infill Housing Strategy recommends actions to advance infill housing that fits within the West Kelowna context, and facilitates and monitors long-term success.

About infill housing

Infill housing:

  • Is typically ground-oriented
  • Often has three or fewer stories
  • Fits within existing neighbourhoods
  • Diversifies housing options
  • Enhances walkability
  • Fosters community completeness
  • Is often more environmentally sustainable and cost-effective than urban expansion
  • Taps into existing infrastructure

 

The Housing Needs Assessment builds on the Regional Needs Assessment and captures unique community needs.

The report is a guide to recommend strategies and best management practices for West Kelowna's Housing Strategy.

The 2024 Westside Unique Identifier Count (UIC) reports on several social issues related to homelessness, including the increasing reliance on services for immediate survival such as food and shelter.

The report indicated that:

  • Youth and seniors’ services are particularly at risk
  • Youth often face challenges as they age out of foster care
  • Seniors report significant mobility, health, and affordability concerns
  • Economic instability, driven by unaffordable housing, low income, and lack of family support, remains a primary cause of homelessness.

The report recommends including integrating UIC findings into key City planning efforts including the Official Community Plan, Housing Strategy, and Community Safety and Well-Being Plan.

The Regional District of Central Okanagan's Regional Housing Strategy (RHS) explores tools and actions, including improved coordinated efforts, that can address housing issues, needs and gaps throughout the region, including affordability, supply, and supportive housing challenges.

The strategy focuses on the regional district as a whole and identifies a range of actions at the local level specific to non-market and market housing in the Central Okanagan East and West electoral areas, City of Kelowna, City of West Kelowna, District of Lake Country, District of Peachland, Westbank First Nation, and Okanagan Indian Band.

Social housing in West Kelowna

Social housing is government subsidized. Facilities are typically government owned and operated or a non-profit housing partner may be chosen to operate them.

Social housing serves:

  • People struggling with or at risk of homelessness
  • Low-income seniors and families
  • Those displaced by domestic violence
  • Individuals with disabilities
  • Community members who need of help to sustain a safe and secure home

Additional background and information

To support community members with service navigation, including those community members who are unhoused, the City has created the following resource lists.

The West Kelowna Temporary Shelter at 2515 Bartley Court, is a safe space, providing 42 warm beds available for people 19 and older who are experiencing homelessness, through a partnership between BC Housing and Turning Points Collaborative Society, with support from the City

The temporary modular shelter provides:

  • Common areas
  • Kitchen
  • Hygiene facilities
  • Individual rooms

Learn more about BC Housing's services, programs and facilities:

Contact West Kelowna Temporary Shelter

The West Kelowna Women’s Shelter helps women and children fleeing domestic abuse.

The building offers 10 transition house/emergency units, where women who are fleeing an immediate domestic abuse situation can stay for up to 30 days. 

A further 32 second-stage units are available for women and children who have experienced domestic abuse and need time and programming to further support their healing journey. Women can stay in second-stage housing for up to 12 months. Second stage units range from one to four bedrooms.

  • 24-hour helpline: 250-763-1040
  • 24-hour textline: 236-970-0704

Seniors Outreach & Resource Centre offers a housing directory for Central Okanagan seniors looking for low-income, supportive, long-term and assisted living housing.

Seniors' housing units in West Kelowna are located at:

  • Central Okanagan Co-Operative, 2421 Last Road; 34 units for seniors 55-plus
  • Westbank Lions Seniors' Housing, 715 Gellatly Road, 40 subsidized independent housing units for seniors with low income

For more housing options visit the Seniors Outreach Housing Directory.

More Seniors' Housing Supports:

2018 Westside Point-In-Time Count

In July 2018, the City and Westbank First Nation coordinated with community agencies and volunteers to conduct the Westside’s first Point-in-Time Count, which provided valuable information about the individuals experiencing or struggling with homelessness in our community.

Temporary shelter

On July 13, 2020, Council approved a Temporary Use Permit for a facility to temporarily house residents previously staying at the shelter at the United Church on Brown Road. The church’s sale created an urgency to find a new temporary shelter before winter.

Previous Winter Shelter

From January through March 2020, BC Housing provided a temporary winter shelter at 1160 Stevens Road to assist the Greater Westside's most vulnerable citizens.

The West Kelowna Shelter Society (WKSS), under contract from BC Housing, provided the temporary modular shelter, with safe, secure services and supports for up to 40 people, who required refuge from extreme cold temperatures through the winter months.

Homes for B.C. 

Homes for BC is the Government of B.C.'s 30-point plan to address housing affordability for British Columbians.

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