FEATURE: National Forest Week celebrated
SPORTS: Houston Luckies ready for the new season
PAGE 10-11
PAGE 13
Publications Mail Registration #0040028607
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2012
Proudly serving Houston and District - Home of Canada’s Largest Fly Rod
www.houston-today.com
NO. 41 $1.35 Inc. HST
Health care funding By Jackie Lieuwen Houston Today
Jackie Lieuwen/Houston Today
THE BIG One
Greg Soroka, a fisher from Kelowna, reels in a beautiful steelhead trout at Bymac Park on October 3. He and his friend Lonnie Kam came to Houston for a few days to get their fishing fix while they still can.
A new health foundation has organized to help fill funding gaps for health care and hospital needs in the Bulkley Valley. The Bulkley Valley Health Care & Hospital Foundation, is a new foundation to help get medical equipment for the Bulkley Valley, to educate people about ways to stay healthy and to deal with illness, and to give people a way to invest, donate and fund raise for specific health care needs in the local area. “The main purposes of the foundation are first of all to try and help the public and the people fulfill their personal desires in the health care field,” said Ted Bobb, chair of the Foundation, adding
that they are in the process of applying for Charitable status. The Foundation is a way for people to bring up needs they see in local hospitals or gaps in the local health care system, and to fund raise to fill those specific needs, said Bobb. With Northern Health, they decide what the greatest health care needs are and where money goes, but with this Foundation, the community decides for itself where money should go, said Jo Ann Groves, director of the Foundation and inspiration behind its formation. It’s not just hospital needs, added Bobb, it’s also for other types of health care like holistic health and particularly illness prevention and promoting healthy living. See HEALTH on Page 3
Bulkley Valley real estate markets are slowly picking up Black Press
The BC Northern Real Estate Board reports 3749 properties worth $865.5 million sold through the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) in the first nine months of 2012. At this time last year, 3443 properties worth $740 million
had changed hands. As of Sept. 30 there were 4889 properties of all types available for sale through the MLS®, down from 5076 properties at the end of September last year. President Joni Brown comments “there are increases in most markets across the board – not
drastic, but showing a sustainable market compared to other areas of the province. Interest rates are still low, making it a good time for entry level buyers to get into the market, and investors to add to their inventory.” In Houston, towards the end of September, 42 properties worth
$6.4 million sold in the Houston area, compared with 39 properties worth $6.6 million in the same period last year. At the end of September there were 50 properties of all types available for purchase through MLS® in the Houston area. In Smithers, as of
Sept. 30, 192 properties worth $47.6 million changed hands in the Smithers area, compared with 211 properties worth $44.7 million in the first nine months of 2011. Half of the 96 single family homes sold so far this year, sold for less than $250,000 and these homes took, on average, 70 days to
sell. Also changing hands this year were 28 parcels of vacant land, 42 homes on acreage, 8 manufactured homes in parks and 12 manufactured homes on land. As of Sept. 30, there were 218 properties of all types available through the MLS® in the Smithers area. For Burns Lake,
so far this year 48 properties worth $6.2 million have been reported sold through MLS® compared to 61 properties worth $6.9 million in the first nine months of 2011. At the end of September there were 146 properties of all types available for sale through the MLS® in the Burns Lake area.