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Letter: Langley seniors coalition wants mobile home parks protected

Seniors are an increasing proportion of the homeless population and housing options are declining.
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Dear Editor,

I am writing on behalf of the Langley Seniors Action Community Table (LSCAT) to reinforce the need to press the mayor and vouncil of the Township to maintain the present MH1 designation for the Cedar Creek Manufactured Home Park on 200th Street and 32nd Avenue.

On Sept 12 at 6 o’clock in the evening a public hearing at George Preston Recreation Centre will enter into what many see as the final attempt by the Township council to develop a community plan in the Brookswood- Fernridge area, a plan that is designed to set the ground rules for future development in that area.

Your newspaper’s coverage of the Community Plan process has shown it has not been smooth.

Every time council appeared ready to make a decision, they heard dissenting voices from individuals or groups about specific elements of the plan. One of those groups the residents of Cedar Creek Park expressed concerns about potential changes to the zoning designation of the Cedar Creek Manufactured Homes Park on 200th Street leading to the disappearance of affordable housing in Langley.

LSCAT wish to add its voice to their concerns. As many of us know, appropriate housing options for seniors and lower income individuals, within our community, are becoming more and more limited. Housing cost pressures on us all are increasing daily. We know there is a diminishing rental and affordable housing market in the Metro Vancouver area and manufactured home parks provide one viable alternative.

Maintaining the current designation for the Cedar Creek Manufactured Home Park property will help alleviate some of that pressure sending a clear message to the more than the 150 residents, that they will be housing secure for the foreseeable future and will have not have to face the prospect of having to find equivalent alternative housing that may not actually exist.

As the area coordinator of the Langley area in the Metro Homeless Count in March of 2017, I was very surprised and concerned to discover that something like 23 per cent of the overall homeless population in the Metro Vancouver Area were 55 plus. That translates into the potential of some 50 seniors in the greater Langley area being part of our homeless population.

Removing a further 150 homes from the affordable housing market in the Township leaves one to wonder what would happen to many of the low income Seniors and other individuals who see these manufactured home as their only housing option. Where would they go if the park was eliminated?

LSCAT, as an advocacy voice for seniors within Langley is asking that the community seek to maintain the present designation for the Cedar Creek Manufactured Home Park and inform our Township council of this fact now and into the future.

Kiernan Hillan, Chair of Housing Committee, LSCAT