Sarah Woodgate - Calgary Housing Company

Through Calgary Housing Company, The City of Calgary provides homes to almost 25,000 low and moderate income Calgarians on the traditional territories of the Blackfoot people, the Nakoda people of the Stoney Nation, the Beaver people of the Tsuut’ina Nation, and the Metis Nation of Alberta, Region Three. Supported by The City’s Corporate Affordable Housing Strategy, we build relationships, partner and collaborate with stakeholders to deliver affordable housing solutions that suit the local context.

Our data shows an overrepresentation of Indigenous households in need of affordable housing, and this need will continue to rise. It is critical that we collaborate with our local Indigenous communities and stakeholders to identify and deliver affordable housing solutions that address gaps and challenges, and are culturally relevant and appropriate.

We are at the beginning of our journey with truth and reconciliation. As part of this journey, we are co-creating an environment where Indigenous leaders and stakeholders can come together to identify what The City’s role should be in the delivery of affordable housing for Indigenous Calgarians. Principles of reconciliation such as co-creation, respect, inclusion, mutual trust, and truth-telling are embedded in our approach to creating this equitable space. To move forward on our journey, we must come up with meaningful and innovative solutions that are supported and driven by the community.  We have much to do, and we have much to learn.

Stephen MacMackin Blog on Housing

Stephen MacMackin

Chair

DeMille Place Inc – Seniors Apartment, Hampton, New Brunswick

The community I live in may not fit the rural picture that most Canadians have in their head. The Town of Hampton, New Brunswick population 4000 sits halfway between Saint John and Sussex and serves as a bedroom community for both.

Our church St Paul’s Anglican has provided support to the community since 1811. Most days we feel like a young community built around schools and sporting activities. I am a 1961 baby boomer who is now starting to think about other issues like housing and aging.

Our church was blessed to have land, which led us to contemplate how it could be put to a greater use. So, in the spring of 2016 we began to explore ideas. The need we identified was for senior’s apartment housing. Lack of it, is forcing people to move from our community.

Today we have a 21-unit building under construction, it has been built to be affordable, accessible and energy efficient. Sometimes it is hard to believe this has happened.

Myself I am not a naive person but as I now sit back and recount in my mind how we got to this point and the many hurdles we overcame I am amazed.

Our dedicated team of people has worked diligently now for over 3 years. A not-for-profit corporation was created to do this project. We spoke to people, visited other projects, collaborated with government agencies, worked with town administrators, created a plan with our design team, and tried to learn all we could before we started.

Yes, we have many learnings and lessons to share. Yes, we had days when we thought this project might not happen but it has.

This month we have begun the process of interviewing people to become tenants in our building. The joy and excitement from those who will be living in this new building has reminded us of why we started this project.

This was truly a good idea. We are thankful it has happened.

DeMille Place Impossible without Generous Volunteers & Partnerships

Rev. David Turner

Rector of St. Paul’s Anglican Church, Hampton

Since 2016, a team of extremely hardworking volunteers from St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Hampton, N.B. has been striving to realize their dream of providing housing for community members who would otherwise have to leave Hampton when no longer able to maintain their own homes. Thanks to the dedication and persistence of those very passionate and capable volunteers, that dream is just days away from becoming a reality.

On land donated by St. Paul’s Anglican Church and the Anglican Diocese of Fredericton, a brand-new independent senior’s living complex, called DeMille Place, and comprised of 21 units, is rapidly nearing completion. The independent not-for-profit corporation created to complete this project is in the process of welcoming future tenants who are thrilled that they will be able to stay in the community they love.

As the Rector (a.k.a. Pastor) of St. Paul’s, it’s been my honour to journey with the volunteers that have pushed this project forward. What has struck me most while on this journey has been the sheer generosity, in terms of time and effort and material resources, that has gone into making this project possible. Without the enormous generosity of the DeMille Place volunteers and the time and effort that they have put into forming generous partnerships between the local church, the Diocese, the municipality, and provincial and federal agencies, this project would not have been possible.

The question that comes to my mind then, as I wonder how we might see more of this kind of thing happening in our region, is this: How might we cultivate and reproduce the kind of generosity that’s been demonstrated in the DeMille Place project? And a second question follows out of it: What might be possible, not only in the area of rural and aging housing, but in every area relevant to community flourishing, if we did?