{"id":930372,"date":"2026-10-12T15:16:29","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T15:16:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/930372\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T15:16:29","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T15:16:29","slug":"surreys-mayflower-co-op-residents-fear-theyll-lose-their-homes-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/930372\/","title":{"rendered":"Surrey\u2019s Mayflower co-op residents fear they\u2019ll lose their homes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Surrey\u2019s Mayflower co-op residents fear they\u2019ll lose their homes<\/p>\n

Published 3:04 pm Friday, October 9, 2026<\/p>\n

A group of Mayflower Co-op housing members who are worried about the prospect of losing their homes attended a Surrey mayoral election debate at the Sheraton Guildford on October 7 dressed in yellow shirts and seeking answers from candidates.<\/p>\n

Resident Brandi Murphy said 92 families stand to be affected.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe plan was to safely relocate 92 existing families. Instead, BC Housing and the current administration have hung us out to dry. Many of our diverse, volunteer-run community members have lived here for over 20 years and are now facing total displacement and separation from loved ones,\u201d she told the Now-Leader.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe feel used. Our co-op was the bargaining chip used to secure city council funding, and now our lives are being turned upside down.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the building is owned by a developer in Hong Kong. <\/p>\n

Last December Surrey council approved at third reading a proposal to build a 24-storey tower containing 230 rental units downtown following a public hearing on December 15 at City Hall. It involved Provincial Rental Housing Corp. plans to build the tower at the southeast corner of 104 Avenue and 132 Street over three levels of underground parking, on vacant land where a gas station used to be.<\/p>\n

A representative of BC Housing told council at the time<\/a> that 92 residents at Mayflower will have no place to live if it isn\u2019t approved.<\/p>\n

Vanessa Wong, a senior manager of development with BC Housing, noted in December that the City of Surrey\u2019s 2025 housing needs report forecasts the city will need over 53,000 more dwellings to address its five-year housing need and Whalley, including the city centre, is one of three neighbourhoods with the highest number of low-income households and has the highest rate of renters.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur application is proposing to help alleviate those pressures and respond to those needs by providing affordable, accessible, quality housing in the Whalley neighbourhood through the creation of 230 affordable rental units,\u201d Wong told council.<\/p>\n

Murphy said the residents left the mayors\u2019 debate feeling none the wiser about what\u2019s going on. Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke could not be immediately reached for comment Friday.<\/p>\n

Chris Schuessler, an organizer with the renters advocacy group BC ACORN, said about 20 people from Mayflower were among those who attended the debate.<\/p>\n

He said Locke mentioned during the debate the cancelling of BC Housing projects in February. The Now-Leader reported in May that Locke said she\u2019s \u201csteaming\u201d<\/a> 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 in May. \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

Asked if any Mayflower residents are in imminent danger of losing their homes, Schuessler replied, \u201cNo, but they all feel there\u2019s some impending like in a year or two they\u2019re going to have to find somewhere else. So it\u2019s this sort-of vague, foreboding sense they have.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve been looking all summer for something to get some clarity,\u201d Schuessler noted. \u201cThey thought they\u2019d been given special accommodation. Like they have 92 units, they thought they\u2019d get 92 units in this 230 unit building they\u2019d have a kind-of co-op section of it I guess, along with the BC Housing population but now they\u2019re told they have to sort-of enter the general BC Housing population, in which most of them don\u2019t qualify for.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re stressed out,\u201d he said. \u201cThey probably think they have to sign something completely new but they want to keep the co-operative together. A lot of history there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schuessler said \u201cit does appear that construction on the 104 Avenue project is going forward with a move in date of February 2030 \u2013 but relocation promises for Mayflower have disappeared.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Surrey\u2019s Mayflower co-op residents fear they\u2019ll lose their homes Published 3:04 pm Friday, October 9, 2026 A group…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":930373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674],"class_list":["post-930372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930372","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=930372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/930373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=930372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=930372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=930372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}