The Safe at Home Society’s plan to take over the Coast High Country Inn and convert it to supportive housing has come to fruition.

The plan was first announced last August – and was supposed to be finalized within 60 days.

It’s taken longer to settle the sale, but an announcement by the federal government to provide $15 million in funding this morning has sealed the deal.

The plan is to convert the building into 55 supportive housing units.

Of those, 75 per cent of the leaseholders will be Indigenous, 50 per cent will be women, and the final 16 per cent is earmarked for youth housing.

The money was announced by Ahmed Hussen, the federal minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion, during a news conference organized by Yukon MP Brendan Hanley.

Kate Mechan, the society’s executive director, was the primary speaker, along with Mayor Laura Cabott, and Ranj Pillai, the minister responsible for the Yukon Housing Corp.

While work is already underway on the renovations, Mechan said, the federal money should ensure the building will be ready for occupancy between mid-September and December.

“This is 10 years in the making,” Mechan said. “This is not about Safe at Home. This is a community I care deeply about, and will be part of a vibrant downtown core.”

“Along with the housing units, there will be a tremendous amount of community and meeting space.”

Mechan was somewhat vague on exactly what supportive housing means in this context, but said residents would be provided with 24/7 support.

She said, though, the concept is not like an assisted living facility. Instead, it’s more informal than that.

It’s just a step in addressing Whitehorse’s – and the Yukon’s – housing crisis, she added.

“This project isn’t the silver bullet,” Mechan said. “No one project can be.”

Cabott said she’s seen “a lot of buy-in from the community” for the project.

The society’s point-time census last year indicated there are at least 151 homeless people in Whitehorse, so the project indeed can’t solve that problem overnight.

When the venture was announced in August 2021, the society said it was working on an application to the City of Whitehorse for its funding under the federal Rapid Housing Initiative (RHI) 2.0 Cities Stream to convert the Coast High Country Inn on Fourth Avenue into 55 units of permanent supportive housing.

The society said then “the aim of the project is to provide unique opportunities to a mixed demographic of individuals who are currently homeless or at-risk of homelessness with urgent, stable, and secure housing along with support services.”

The inn had been owned and operated by the Northern Vision Development corporation.

Michael Hale, the company’s president and chief operating officer at that time, said the property was being sold for somewhat less than the value of the last market appraisal.

“I can’t share the appraisal, because it is proprietary and includes a different asset in the same document,” he said in 2021. “However, I can say that hotel is being sold for roughly $10 million.

Hale said the company was happy to support the deal.

It’s supportive of social causes such as housing, he said, and there were compelling business reasons to support this sale, as well.

‘We believe that in addition to providing lasting community value, the sale of the High Country Inn will allow us to double down on tourism by giving us the ability to build a new hotel with more rooms,” he said.

That recovery would allow the company to proceed with a long-term goal of building a new hotel downtown, said the former president.

The company confirmed those plans in late 2021.

The Rapid Housing Initiative, delivered through the City of Whitehorse, covers capital funding for new affordable housing for people and populations who are vulnerable.

In its earlier life dating back to the 1970s, the High Country Inn was known as the YWCA Building and the Fourth Avenue Residence.

The Yukon Housing Corporation will further support the project through $1 million in additional funding under the Housing Initiatives Fund.

The society can also apply for development incentives from the city that could be matched by the housing corporation.