Over-under Housing Policy – Homes BC (Overhousing)

The Homes BC agreement references “occupancy standards”. These are a set of guidelines intended to optimally match household sizes to home sizes, and avoid situations like under-housing (too many people in too few bedrooms) and over-housing (too few people for the number of bedrooms available).  The standards typically suggest couples share a bedroom, that parents and children don’t share a room, and that dependents over 18 each get their own room.

This policy helps co-ops comply with their Homes BC operating agreement and assists with achieving right-sizing, by helping establish a path for downsizing (since oversizing is typically more challenging to deal with than underhousing).

See how the national occupancy guidelines (very similar to those for the Homes BC program), would apply to a variety of households in the exercise below. Assume that each of the kinds of homes listed are available for consideration; drag the matching home type(s) to the household images on the left.

For the activity, you can assume that nobody has an invisible disability that requires equipment to be stored or a caregiver to be housed. (Exception: non-member caregivers may be shown in a faded/desaturated form.) For this activity, the image showing the two older adult women are sisters.