With hopes of identifying and addressing affordable housing needs in Sylvan Lake, a committee is working to launch a needs assessment and get an action plan in place.

The Sylvan Lake Housing Committee was before Town Council last night (Sept 25th), looking for some funding to help get the ball rolling.

Geoff Olsen with that group says before you can work on a solution you need to make sure you are addressing the right problems.

“Developing Housing Needs Assessment so we can see what the gaps are, right now anecdotally we know what some of the gaps might be, but what you see anecdotally and what’s factual might be two different things”.

Olsen says the needs assessment is the best way to get those answers.

“If you don’t know what your clients need and what’s lacking from your inventory in the province, then you’re just going to spend money where you think you might need it, not necessarily where you actually need it”.

The Town funded a Social Master Plan in 2016 which the Housing Committee hopes to build off of according to Olsen, to make sure there's appropriate and affordable housing available in Sylvan Lake.

The Committee asked for $20,000 in funding from the Town for the needs assessment and they in turn would come up with an additional $20,000 to develop the action plan.

That ask will be considered further during upcoming Town budget deliberations.