A city council decision at its Jan. 7 meeting will make it easier for residents to take the guesswork out of renting a room or suite in their house.
Council agreed to grant $5,000 from its affordable housing fund to Community Futures Central Kootenay to market the Happipad program.
Happipad is a non-profit organization that helps people find affordable housing through home sharing. The platform connects hosts with renters for medium-to-long-term stays. The organization enables peer-to-peer creation and management of housing sharing agreements along with compatibility matching.
The platform handles rent payments, security deposits, legal documentation (e.g.. tenancy agreements), background checks, and conflict resolution.
The grant will fund the work of Ramamoorthi Parameswaran, who has been hired by Community Futures to market the program as the Happipad ambassador.
He said landlords tend to be nervous about whether the tenant will be a good fit in the household.
"So we are primarily eliminating many of the major challenges for homeowners," he said following the council meeting. "The platform does the background checks, and it also provides the homeowner with automatic payment, so the payment goes to the platform and then to the homeowner."
Andrea Wilkey, executive director of Community Futures, says there are many homeowners who have more space than they need – "over-housed" single people living in multi-bedroom homes.
"I think it's got real potential to to help solve a problem and let homeowners be part of the housing solution, and also provide them with a little bit of extra income, as well as some company in the home," she said. "A nursing student, or someone like that, could be a great roommate."
At the Jan. 7 meeting, Councillor Jesse Pineiro called the Happipad program a welcome example of making better use of the housing that already exists in the city, as opposed to over-reliance on new housing projects.
"Part of getting out of a housing crisis is utilizing the houses that we have," he said. "(There is) not just one solution but many solutions that mesh together and make sense, and that needs to be focused on more."
Homeowners can list themselves as hosts at https://happipad.com/nelson with no cost or commitment.
Parameswaran is also available to help homeowners set up their listings and assist with things like photos and navigating the website.
