A delegation from the Local Immigration Partnership Program (LIPP) in Portage la Prairie paid a visit to the last city council meeting and presented the concern of the need for housing for newcomers.

Coordinator Mitch Tilk says LIPP represents vulnerable people, and are dealing directly with the consequences of poverty, homelessness, and a lack of affordable housing.

"In our discussions over the past, housing has been identified as a need in our community with the Local Immigration Partnership for at least four years now," notes Tilk. "But in talking with some newcomers through holding newcomer consultations, housing was clearly one of the most important issues in our community."

He says we're not seeing housing match the growth that Portage is experiencing.

Mitch Tilk"So, we started looking into other options and some other communities in Manitoba and in the country, and presumably around the world," adds Tilk. "We have come up with local housing strategies which allow the municipality to emphasize certain areas that they want."

ensuring more homeownership, or by bringing in potentially millions of dollars in funding, but also in the social benefits of happier, wealthier, and safer residents of our community.

She explains she requested the support of the creation of a position within the City of Portage’s budget for a staff member to research, design, and then seamlessly transition to the implementation of a municipal housing strategy.

Tilk says the city responded, noting the private sector would be the usual means of filling this gap for housing. 

He notes the degree of the need for housing.

"Don Boddy (Regional Coordinator at MANSO) knows somebody that's commuting from Winnipeg to work at a minimum wage job here in Portage, which is just not good for our long term sustainability as a community."

He says they'd like to see this included in the City strategic plan for the next go around, or perhaps into next year's budget.

"We're hoping that we can maybe find some other ways to acquire funding, maybe through grants or things like that, in order to perhaps get a piece of this going, in the meantime," notes Tilk. "Maybe we can get a coordinator or hire somebody to write to, to identify the gaps in the community; maybe answer some of the questions about what's going on with the private market? Why is it not really keeping up with demand here? We really feel that the city can take an umbrella-type role in this and helping us coordinate with other agencies to come up with a really directed strategy on how to solve these issues. So, we're just kind of waiting to see what happens and we're excited and hoping to fix this issue, no matter what."