The Town of Gander is frustrated with a lack of support from the provincial government in the municipality’s plans to develop affordable housing.

The town purchased the old Pentecostal church on Elizabeth Drive in 2022, but since then they’ve been stuck in limbo, waiting on the provincial government to come forward with funding to help convert the building into affordable housing units.

Mayor Percy Farwell says they felt the location of the 15,000 square foot building was “ideal” and decided to purchase when it came up on the market.

“We did that” Farwell told VOCM Open Line, “for the sole purpose of going out and inviting expressions of interest for proposals to meet the social needs in the community, whether they be health, or housing.” Farwell says the successful proponent was the local Housing and Homelessness Advisory Board a group Farwell calls “a dream team.”

The board, he says, needs support from the provincial government to carry out the necessary renovations and operations of a facility that will offer emergency, transitional and some affordable housing, complete with wrap-around supports—which he says is funded by government in many other places across the province.

“But the wheels turn so slowly” Farwell laments “we’re still in a situation where a year and a half later, we’re paying the light bill, we’re holding onto a building. and we’ve got an increasingly frustrated community advisory board… and they just keep feeling light they’re spinning their wheels.”