This is my personal priority #1 as I see the problems much more often than other candidates. Not only is my work revolving around the housing sector but I am one of many young people feeling the burdening pressures of simply finding and paying for the basic need of housing, not only to buy but even more so to rent.

The first and immediate solution is to provide more housing. A greater supply of homes will drive down rental prices and alleviate the pressures for everyone renting. There are several steps that we need to take in order to address this:

- Revise the OCP (official community plan) aka KAMPLAN to reflect the needs of today's city, not 2018 pre-pandemic Kamloops that hadn't experienced a boom of housing prices and population.

- Ensure the City of Kamloops Development Services and Engineering Dept has adequate human capital. Right now the department is understaffed severely.

- Expedite permitting times and processes to ensure that new housing starts are able to begin more efficiently.

- Provide pre-zoning for smaller multi-family developments (4-plex, 6-plex or similar) and eventually for smaller apartment buildings (10-20 unit apartments to start but increasing in size) in areas that are prime for redevelopment corridors. This links back to revising the OCP.

- Working with developers in an ever changing industry to ensure that we are ready to adapt as needed.

I have other ideas but these would be the most feasible and immediate changes we could implement for providing relief to the housing crisis.