Mayor \u2018steaming\u2019 about stopping of supportive housing in Surrey<\/p>\n
Published 3:20 pm Wednesday, May 6, 2026<\/p>\n
Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke says she\u2019s \u201csteaming\u201d about the provincial government stopping 954 supportive housing units in Surrey while at the same time expecting it to meet housing targets it imposes on the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got a letter in February \u2013 they cancelled all eight of eight units, 954 housing units all different kinds women\u2019s transitional, youth housing, shelter and supportive housing, Indigenous housing like that,\u201d Locke told the Now-Leader. \u201cThey cancelled every one of them on us. It was $421 million. I\u2019m actually steaming over this.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Feb. 19 Locke and council received a letter from Naomi Brunemeyer \u2013 BC Housing\u2019s director of regional development for the Lower Mainland \u2013 concerning the \u201cneed to adjust the pace of housing developments\u201d given \u201cfiscal constraints.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brunemeyer said two projects \u2013 Semiahmoo Town Centre supportive, complex care and affordable housing as well as Grosvenor supportive housing and shelter \u2013 will no longer proceed.<\/p>\n
Others being \u201cdeferred\u201d include Old Yale Road women\u2019s transition housing (Shimai replacement, on a BCH-owned site) and five on City of Surrey-owned sites including the 104th Avenue women\u2019s transition housing, youth supportive housing for 14646-104A Avenue, the Newton Site shelter and supportive housing, FRAFCA\/192nd Indigenous housing and Surrey Gateway at 13310-108th Avenue.<\/p>\n
Brunemeyer told council BC Housing is committed to moving forward with these projects but \u201cprogress may be slower because provincial housing investments will be flowing as a slower pace, and we will need to ensure that investments are aligned with funding availability.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe understand this update may be disappointing,\u201d she wrote, \u201cgiven our shared commitment to providing much-needed housing in Surrey.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you for you understanding, and for your continued partnership in supporting housing across the city,\u201d Brunemeyer concluded.<\/p>\n
Locke said the City of Surrey had been negotiating with BC Housing all last year to the point where the city purchased \u201ca bunch\u201d of property for projects.<\/p>\n
\u201cSurrey of all cities needs help with this stuff,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSurrey\u2019s done very well on our housing targets but you take just about a thousand units out of our housing targets? We\u2019re not going to hit them, no way. They set these targets for us to reach and then they say oh, but we\u2019re going to pull the rug from under you for a thousand of those units.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s ridiculous. How the heck are we supposed to do that?\u201d<\/p>\n
Locke said she\u2019s spoken with Premier David Eby and Christine Boyle, minister of housing and municipal affairs, about this issue without satisfaction.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is going on?\u201d the mayor asks. \u201cWe had all of ours cancelled and again we\u2019re seeing all of this stuff happen in Vancouver. We the City of Surrey purchased land for some of these because that\u2019s our contribution, right \u2013 the space and then they build. And they were cancelled. Well, they say deferred. Deferred is aka for cancelled, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought we were going to be able to talk to the ministry but it\u2019s obvious they are not interested in making any changes. Deferred means cancelled. I\u2019ve had meetings with the minister. I was trying to get a meeting with her and she kept saying I\u2019m too busy, I\u2019m too busy. We had a meeting with her a couple of weeks ago with her but she didn\u2019t have anything to add.\u201d<\/p>\n
Locke noted it\u2019s \u201cpretty obvious\u201d homelessness on Surrey\u2019s streets is showing \u201ca lot more than it ever did before, and we got nothing. This really is bad to me. One of them was 30-bed youth supportive housing. They cancelled them. The shelter site \u2013 a Newton shelter and supportive housing site \u2013 a supportive complex care and affordable housing was cancelled, another one on Grosvenor Road was cancelled.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor \u2018steaming\u2019 about stopping of supportive housing in Surrey Published 3:20 pm Wednesday, May 6, 2026 Surrey Mayor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,163792,87674],"class_list":["post-652580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-lower-mainland","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}