^ Those "essential service" workers would absolutely be going into the rental units and not the social housing, unless they somehow qualify for income support due to long term disability, etc.
The operator for the non-market housing is going to be the Co-op federation of BC, which is the perfect group, in my opinion. I grew up in a couple of co-ops and I know a fair amount about them and I might be able to help explain how they work and how they can be considered non-market housing.
By definition co-ops are mixed income communities with the majority of members paying market rental rates for their monthly housing charge. This monthly housing charge covers all of the co-ops costs, such as insurance, lease and/or mortgage payments, utilities, etc. Nearly all co-ops are self managed and all co-op members are expected to volunteer in some capacity to the daily life of the co-op, so gardening, security, special events, minor repairs, strategic financial planning, etc., are performed by members who volunteer on various committees. With that said, nearly all co-ops also contract serious/heavy building maintenance to reputable property management companies and contract law firms and accounting firms to address insurance and liability, and financial management issues, respectively. The operational costs for co-ops are lower than most stratas because the co-op members simply do more work that would typically be contracted out by a strata council. Co-ops also usually had their land originally provided for them by the City, Province, or Federal Government and lease payments are made to the appropriate level of government in addition to municipal property taxes. The co-ops also carry and pay down the mortgages that were taken out to finance the construction of their buildings and depending on who orchestrated the creation of the co-op the mortgages may have been private or public via CMHC. What co-ops typically do not carry is the financial burden of buying the land.
The majority of people who live in co-ops pay the full monthly housing charge, which is mostly analogous to rent but reflects only the cost of operating the co-op, paying the mortgage, contractors, etc., and does not include a profit margin for the owner of a rental building. The full monthly housing charge does include a small amount of surplus beyond the total cost of operating the co-op and this surplus is used by the co-op to provide "shallow subsidy" for people whose incomes are insufficient for them to pay the full housing charge without consuming more than a certain percentage of their income, the level for which varies from co-op to co-op based on a bunch of factors. Most people who fall into the shallow subsidy group do so for relatively short periods of time, such as during a period of under- or unemployment, or when one parent stays home to raise a newborn, as a couple examples. The number of shallow subsidies available within a co-op is usually capped to a certain percentage of the overall co-op membership, about 15% to 20%, and is structured in such a way that the surplus from the 60% to 75% of people in the co-op at the market rate are able to cover it.
For those whose incomes require additional financial support beyond the internally financed shallow subsidy there is an option for deep subsidy, which is financed by the level of government that created the co-op, which is usually the Federal or Provincial Government. The number of deep subsidies available within a co-op is very limited and is really driven by the level of financial support available from government. The co-ops from the 70s that were created by CMHC typically have more deep subsidy available to them than the more recent ones created in the 90s and 2000s by the Provincial Government. CMHC's plan for its co-ops is that when the co-ops mortgages are retired they will be able to direct that portion of their budget to those on deep subsidy, thereby ending the government's role in providing any subsidy to the co-op.
Co-ops in Canada do require a share purchase by members but it is entirely different than co-ops in New York, for example, where the share purchase may be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. To the best of my knowledge the share purchases that are required in BC co-ops is in the low thousands and is really more of a large security deposit than a financial asset. The co-op's shares are kept in trust for members and are not available for any financial reason to the co-op for unexpected costs, etc.
Most well run co-ops factor in very healthy replacement and repair reserves to their overall budgets and these are built up as part of the monthly housing charge. The co-ops leverage their collective buying power to do ongoing maintenance, like having a professional carpet cleaning company do the carpets for the whole co-op, for those who have carpets, or to buy appliances, floorings, paint, etc. Usually the committee that addresses looks after the replacement reserve provides several options when it comes time to do a purchase. As an example, my mother's co-op recently decided to replace all the fridges with newer, more efficient, and just plain nicer. Members could opt-out of the whole project if they liked their old fridge or had purchased a fridge on their own. They could choose the fridge that the volunteer committee was recommending after having done research, received competitive quotes, etc. Or they could purchase a fridge of their choosing through the selected appliance provider and pay the difference out of pocket between the selected mid-range fridge and the one of their choice, which would still be offered at a lower sticker price than regular retail since the co-op was buying a hundred fridges and could negotiate a better price. The same sort of thing happened fairly recently for cabinets and flooring.
Anyway, ultimately co-ops appeal to people who like the community it fosters, who like knowing their neighbours and working with them on projects and having countless liters of coffee and mountains of biscuits in each other's kitchens and living rooms. They offer a clever way to provide both community and a higher standard of living for people who are relatively lower income than they would likely be able to afford in the private rental market. They offer security of tenure and there is no fear of eviction, ever, due to renovations or conversion to condos, which looms over many rental properties. Of course the co-op retains full rights to evict people who are causing problems. They offer an efficient way for society to provide shallow subsidies for people, especially families, that would be under-housed or experience tenure insecurity in the private rental market due to fluctuations in their income. And they provide the apparatus to ensure that direct financial subsidies for people requiring deep subsidy actually goes to housing and not into drugs, alcohol, etc., since the payments are made to the co-op directly instead of the individual. Plus, by definition, the person/family is part of a community and if a co-op is working properly you should never be able to know which members are receiving any form of subsidy and the records are kept strictly confidential by the legal or accounting firm that does the co-ops books. The one gigantic trade-off of living in a co-op is that one does not build up equity in their home. Some of those who live in co-ops and pay the full housing charge may well be able to buy a place if they chose to, but most members would likely be in a renting position for most of their lives. Moreover, many people choose to remain in their co-op after they have transitioned from a time of shallow or even deep subsidy to the full housing charge, and they do so because most co-ops are a genuine community and people love them intensely.
For the Olympic Village the co-op model would work very well despite there being multiple buildings since the co-op is member-oriented. The co-op that is created in the Olympics Village will likely choose to have the shallow and deep subsidy members settle in whatever building is appropriate for them; families in the green building with its two, three and four bedroom units, seniors in the senior's building with its age-friendly fixtures, etc. There may also be a lot of families in the green building paying the full housing charge and senior's doing likewise in the senior's building. Committee meetings will take place in living rooms and the AGM in the community centre. It's a pretty great model for the place and I'm thrilled to pieces that the co-op federation of BC got the contract. In fairness, they are going to take a wait and see approach for the two rental buildings for a year and half before deciding if they will incorporate them into the co-op, which I think has committed to multiple decades when it was chosen by the City and paid out the twenty-plus million dollar lease for the first two buildings to the City up front. The co-op will then pay back the co-op federation with the money that would have otherwise gone to the City for leasing the land.
Hope that helped answer some questions.
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