Our humble beginnings.
In and around 1970, the Squamish city council, led by Mayor Pat Brennan, realized a severe shortage of affordable senior housing in Squamish. With the support of his council, he and the then town administrator, Jim Craven, commenced discussions with BC Rail to purchase a large multi-acre track of vacant land downtown known as Block R.
They succeeded in purchasing it for $50,000, and Mayor Brennan announced that this land would be set aside for seniors' housing. The entire track of land was swamp, with no roads or services. At the time, Pemberton Avenue did not extend further west than Second Avenue, and Third Avenue ended at today’s Pemberton Avenue.
Mayor Brennan called for creating a non-profit society to lead the cause for building a seniors housing project (the Cedars). And the Squamish Senior Citizens Housing Society was born; Art Reynolds, a retired Federal Fishery officer was the chair; Jim Craven was the Secretary-Treasurer, and then city Alderman Norm Barr was the council representative.
They drew up plans for 20 single-story studio units with a cottage garden style. Volunteer groups and contractors cleared and filled the swamp land with gravel, and they applied to CMHC for a mortgage.
As the site lacked water and sewer, their mortgage could not be approved. With this news, Mayor Brennan called in his Public Works Superintendent, Frank Wilson, and told him to run both services to the site. Wilson protested that he had no budget, and Brennan fired back, “I don’t give a God damn, get those services in!”.
40th Anniversary of The Squamish Senior Citizens Home Society
Norm Barr – founding board member
Dan Sullivan - previous chair
Peter Gordon - current chair
Laura Modray - executive director
Paul Lalli - previous town counsillor
Jim Craven – founding board member and former city administrator
Bill Rempel - previous chair
Jim Craven, the creative financial wizard, found a pocket of budget and squeezed the cost of services out, the mortgage got approved, and the Cedars were built.
This is how Squamish was built in those days and how the Squamish Senior Living Society was formed.
