Selinger highlights BEEP funding during Brandon tour
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/12/2015 (3954 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
An initiative aimed at simultaneously training and employing lower-income Brandonites while bettering the environmental status of area homes was highlighted by Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger during a whistle-stop tour through Brandon yesterday.
Selinger made a stop at the construction site of a five-dwelling development owned by the Westman region’s Canadian Mental Health Association on Friday morning to tout the renewal of a four-year, $4.3-million funding for the Brandon Energy Efficiency Program (BEEP).
The CMHA project will eventually house a lower-income family and people at risk of homelessness.
The money was originally announced about nine months ago, said BEEP operations manager Kristin Nickel.
It will help train about 64 people in construction work, including framing, siding and energy and conservation practices.
The program is managed by Brandon Neighbourhood Renewal Corporation, a non-profit organization that focuses on housing, economic development and public safety in the city’s downtown.
“It stabilizes our funding in a way,” said BNRC general manager Carly Gasparini. “It’s different than what we’ve had in the past because of the guaranteed Manitoba housing work … we know the work is coming, so we can plan and we can see the future of the training program.”
She said BEEP makes up about a third of the work BNRC does.
Since 2007, 11 BEEP participants have gone on to pursue further education, 45 have found full-time work and eight have advanced into apprenticeships.
Trainees in the program have completed four Solutions to End Poverty Permanently (STEPP) homes, exterior work for 25 government-owned homes, work on the interiors of eight homes owned by the Dakota Ojibway Tribal Council Housing Authority and more than a thousand energy and water retrofits on more than 1,000 homes.
Another STEPP duplex is on the docket for BEEP builders in the new year.
“It’s a very large project. It’s meeting community needs and just to see the change in the people that go through the program is amazing,” Nickel said, adding that it’s most rewarding to see the development of the trainees.
“We just had one of our apprentices (who has) been with our program for five years as he’s transitioned through the stages of our program, and he’s come so far,” Nickel said.
“He came in, first day, with no self-confidence, head down when he spoke to you. He is completely changed now — he looks you in the eye, he speaks with confidence, he is a leader on our crew. People learn so much from him, they look up to him on the crew.”
» tbateman@brandonsun.com
» Twitter: @tombatemann