A new website set up by the BC Non-Profit Housing Association hopes to match people who are out of work with job vacancies in the non-profit housing sector.

Director of Communications Dean Pogas says there are hundreds of thousands of B.C. residents out of work, and he says non-profit housing providers is in desperate need of workers.

“A large portion of those people that are currently out of work are from the hospitality and service sectors, which are areas with a number of transferable skills to those in demand from housing providers,” Pogas said.

“This is a matchmaker service which connects more than the 100,000 British Columbians with the non-profit housing sector who are seeing an increasing need for workers. Everything from greeters to cooks to accounting and administrative staff.”

He added front line staff at these housing providers are especially at risk of contracting the novel coronavirus.

“So what we are doing as an organization with our partners is we are trying to be preemptive,” Pogas added. “So as individuals might fall ill, or as the shelter rates possibly increase, we’re there to fill in that gap with this employment portal.”

Pogas says if the website is successful, there is the possibility that it will be kept running even after the pandemic ends. And he notes both people looking for work and people looking for employees can sign up.