JBS to help fund home purchases for Brooks staff

One of the biggest beef packers operating in Canada is pledging $1.7 million for a one-year pilot program to help employees buy or upgrade homes.

JBS Foods Canada, which operates Brazilian meat packer JBS’s plant at Brooks, Alta., on Tuesday announced the launch of what it calls the “Homebuyer Dream Fund,” providing zero-interest loans to put toward a down payment.

The pilot’s budget will come from JBS USA’s “Hometown Strong,” a US$100 million program that backs community projects in areas of the U.S. and Canada where JBS operates.

The fund was set up “to address the growing demand for affordable family homes in Brooks,” and is “specifically designed to help team members overcome financial hurdles when purchasing or upgrading their homes.”

JBS has almost 3,000 employees at its beef slaughter and packing plant at Brooks. The plant is one of Canada’s two biggest, with a slaughter capacity estimated at around 4,000 head of cattle per day.

Improving the working and living conditions for employees in Canada’s meatpacking sector took on added significance in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw major outbreaks in which hundreds of workers at the country’s major meat plants were infected and several died.

JBS workers at Brooks in early February voted 81 per cent in favour of a new six-year collective bargaining agreement, which their union, UFCW Local 401, said will provide “unprecedented” gains in wages and also provides for improved health and safety standards.

The pandemic also put a spotlight on plant workers’ living conditions, showing many lived in larger households or with multi-generational families, or lived with one or more roommates to limit housing costs.

In Brooks — a city of about 14,700 people, about 170 km southeast of Calgary — data from real estate firm Re/Max put the current average asking price for residential real estate at almost $357,000, including homes, apartments, multi-family units and available land.

To qualify for the Homebuyer Dream Fund, JBS said, an employee must commit to a minimum of two years of service, be “in good standing with the company” and have an annual salary of $120,000 or less. Homes purchased with a loan from the fund also must be within 75 km of the JBS plant at Brooks.

The fund would allot a $10,000 loan per eligible employee, to be used toward a down payment. That loan would require no repayment during the first 12 months, would accrue zero interest, and would be repaid through payroll deduction over four years, JBS said.

JBS Foods Canada president David Colwell, in the company’s release, said the new fund “addresses a critical need of our workforce by removing barriers to purchasing an affordable home in our community.”

Brooks Mayor John Petrie, in the same release, hailed the announcement as offering “a good opportunity for JBS Foods Canada workers to get their own home or to move into something bigger.”

Margaret Plumtree, executive director for the Brooks Chamber of Commerce, said the fund “will also benefit the community as a whole through the movement of home sales, renovations, new home builds and quality of family life.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network