Premier Eby highlights housing priorities during Smithers visit

B.C. Premier David Eby was in Smithers on Friday to tour the Ken’ulh K’it Yikh housing project.

It is being built by the Dze L K’ant Housing Society and is set to open later this year.

“This building itself is substantially complete, and we’re just doing the outside works now,” said housing advisor Lydia Howard.

Work on the project at 1611 Main Street started in 2018, with ground broken in August 2024.

It has 37 units ranging from bachelor suites to four-bedroom apartments for urban Indigenous people.

“It’s got strong cultural aspects, going to ground a lot of families and without secure housing, it’s really hard to do anything,” Eby said.

Along with the units, the building has a bike and scooter lockup area, a healing room, and a common area.

One of the goals with the healing room is to allow for meetings with the Ministry of Children and Family Development and Northern Health with tenants, like family reunifications.

Howard said all of the units are fully accessible with a backup generator available to keep an elevator and essential services powered.

“It was definitely worth fighting for the extra funding that we needed to get the generator, and I’m sure it’s going to be worth every penny” said Lee Ewald, building and maintenance manager.

Throughout the building is Indigenous art with each unit getting an animal painted on the door and each floor having its own colour.

“We worked with a Wet’suwet’en artist who has designed 37 unique pieces of art, and it’s like a wayfinding approach,” Howard said.

Eby said housing is a dominant issue in the province between addressing homelessness and wanting to find an affordable place to live.

“It will continue to be a critical issue for government to address, so you are going to see our continued support for projects like this,” he said.

Along with the Smithers project, the housing society is building a 41-unit complex in Houston.