https://bvrh.ca/2025/03/28/march-2025-bvrh-bulletin/
Monthly Bulletin
March 2025
NEWS, INITIATIVES, AND EVENTS
Independent Seniors Apartments Opened in Banff
BVRH has officially launched its new Cascade House Independent Seniors Apartments program, offering four market-rate rental units on the top floor of Bow River Lodge in Banff. The initiative aims to help address the need for independent seniors housing while optimizing the use of available space within our existing infrastructure. Rental rates have been set at lower-end of market and include in-suite laundry and options for a cable package and underground parking.
Rent Supplement Program
The Rent Supplement Program is funded exclusively the Government of Alberta. They have increased the budget by 25% in 2025, allowing us to help even more families afford their rent in the region.
Dental Hygienist Onsite
Kristy Gerber and her team from My Mobile Dental Hygienist continue to offer mobile services to our Bow River Lodge and Bow Rive Homes clients at our Canmore Campus. Please contact them at (403) 988-1691 or by email at info@mmdh.ca for more information.
Continuing Care Wing Occupancy
The first floor continues to fill at a measured, responsible pace. As of writing 45% of the spaces are occupied and we anticipate full occupancy this year. We, along with our partners SE Health have proven that employee housing is key to maintaining the staff levels required to operate the care facility; BVRH has recently increased the number of double-occupancy employee housing spaces from four to seven in 2025.
2025 Budget Planning
The 2025 Budget Planning process is complete.
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Supportive Living and Continuing Care clients can expect inflationary increases of approximately 3% to lodge accommodation and continuing care accommodation fees.
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Our combined 2025 operating budgets are expected to total approximately $10.5 million, $9.7 million of which serves our Supportive Living and Continuing Care clients in Banff and Canmore.
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The budget is 11% higher than 2024 because occupancy rates continue to rise at Bow River Lodge and new revenues are being realized through employee housing in Canmore and market rental housing for seniors in Banff.
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Our total 2025 Municipal Requisition will support our lodge supportive living programs and will be down slightly from 2024. Requisition levels continue to be quite stable.
2024 External Audit
BVRH undergoes external audits annually. Ascend LLP has completed the 2024 audits with favourable results. The results were shared with the Board during the March regular board meeting.
PROGRAM OCCUPANCY RATES
Bow River Lodge – SL 100%
Bow River Lodge – CCHTB 73%
Cascade House 68%
Bow River Homes 100%
Mount Edith House 100%
Community Housing 100%
Rent Supplement 100%
SPECIAL PROJECTS
This is Home (Phase 3+)
Considering ongoing, stubborn uncertainty in the interest rate markets, rising construction costs and challenges aligning GOA and CMHC funding, as well as funding program requirements, we will not submit our proposal to Alberta Seniors, Community, and Social Supports until the next round later in 2025. Upon consultations with senior staff from the Ministry and housing consultants, we will revise some components of our proposal and provide more detail for others. Our proposal will be reinforced with an enhanced business case in development in collaboration with a broad-scale construction and design firm, who are lending us their expertise on a voluntary basis. Meanwhile, we will seek CMHC seed funding to advance our planning to get to constructions-ready status.
These projects will allow us to develop greater certainty toward future capital and operational sustainability. The province received approximately $500 million in funding requests in 2023 for which they had $80 million to spend, this time they have $150 million to fund projects.
These projects, if approved, will refresh much of our Community and Seniors’ Independent Housing stock while adding different types and affordability levels of housing to the region in Canmore and perhaps elsewhere. We hope that the GOA will appreciate and be able to approve the opportunity here and that we will be able to collaborate with them, the Town of Canmore, and ideally other Housing Agencies to address some of the housing crisis in the Bow Valley.
RESOURCES
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If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, please call 911.
• For 24/7 nurse advice and general health information for Albertans information on diseases, treatments, staying well, and healthcare services dial 811.
• For 24/7 community program & service information, including affordability programming in the Bow Valley dial 211.
• If you or someone you know is thinking about suicide, call or text 988.
ABOUT BOW VALLEY REGIONAL HOUSING
Bow Valley Regional Housing (BVRH) is a Housing Management Body (HMB) serving the Government of Alberta and the Bow Valley Region. HMB operational funding sources vary. Tenants pay accommodation fees. Those fees are subject to affordability limits, which prevent them from fully covering the costs of operations. Provincial grants and municipal ratepayer requisitions subsidize seniors lodge deficits, while the province also subsidizes deficits in independent seniors and community housing.
As the HMB for the Bow Valley region, BVRH is responsible for social housing, as well as affordable supportive living accommodation for seniors throughout Kananaskis Country, the Bow Corridor, the MD of Bighorn, and all of Banff National Park, an area covering about 13,500 square kilometers.
All told, we currently house, or help to house approximately 500 residents of the Bow Valley in eight permanent housing projects encompassing 33 separate buildings.
