The Town of Altona is entertaining the idea of possibly managing provincial low rental housing units in the community.

It's a proposal that Manitoba Housing has floated out for town council to consider.

The concept has already been adopted in Winkler where a local non-profit group now manages 54 family units and 12 senior units; housing that was once operated by the province.

There would definitely be some advantages to participating in the initiative, according to Mayor Melvin Klassen.

"We would be able to maintain these buildings to the standard that we want them. Also, there are times when some of those units are unoccupied for over a year. If we were in charge, we could make sure that those units were habitable and put people in there right away."

Town council has not committed to the proposal and is seeking more information on the concept from the Manitoba Housing.

"We need a little more information because we want to know exactly what our responsibilities would be. Manitoba Housing came back to us and said that they would put some criteria down in terms of what would be expected. They would still want these units to be affordable and maintained so that they are ready to be moved into."