The federal government hopes a long-standing co-operative housing complex in Winnipeg will serve as an example across the country as it launches a $1.5-billion development fund dedicated to similar projects.
Federal Housing Minister Sean Fraser was in Winnipeg Thursday, announcing a new co-operative housing development program at Westboine Park Housing Co-op on Shelmerdine Drive in Charleswood.
The nearly 50-year-old affordable-housing complex features 188 suites and 409 residents, ranging in age from six months to 87 years. It operates on a co-operative funding model in which all members own a share of the 17-acre property, rather than paying rent to a landlord.
MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS Coral Hetherington a board member of the Westboine Park Housing Cooperative takes Sean Fraser, Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities, Dan Vandal, Minister of Northern Affairs, Cassia Kantrow the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada (CHF Canada) Board President and its Executive Director Tim Ross, on a quick tour of the housing cooperative prior to announcing that the federal government will be creating a $1.5 billion program to build a “new generation” of co-op housing in Canada and help make housing more affordable.
“What’s extraordinary is the community that exists here,” Fraser said of Westboine, moments after touring the complex. “It demonstrates the possibilities we can achieve if we embrace affordable housing.”
Co-op developments were a staple of the federal plan to provide stable and cost-effective housing to Canadians in the 1970s and ‘80s before governments of all political stripes “washed their hands” of funding such projects, Fraser said.
As the country grapples with a shortage of affordable homes and rental units, the minister hopes reinvesting in the housing model may once again relieve the pressure.
“It’s a no-brainer, from my perspective, that the federal government needs to step back into this space in a serious way,” Fraser said. “We don’t want to just build storage facilities for people, we want to build communities.”
The funding program will be reserved for co-op housing developments, providing loans and contributions to projects throughout the country with the goal of building thousands of homes by 2028, the federal government said.
Fraser touted it as the first, dedicated investment of federal funding into co-op developments in 30 years.
Fraser made the announcement in Winnipeg because the city was home to the nation’s first co-operative housing development in 1966, he said.
While approximately 2,220 co-operatives provide housing for an estimated 250,000 people today, those developments have operated largely without government support for decades.
Westboine’s board of directors member Coral Hetherington lauded the announcement, saying it was a mistake for the government to pull out of co-op funding in the first place.
She has lived at the development for more than 25 years and has seen it struggle at times in the absence of support programs. Not long ago it was “on the brink of disaster” as it faced high vacancy rates and a growing list of needed repairs, she said.
Leaders from the co-op fought for funding, eventually securing approximately $22 million through Assiniboine Credit Union and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. to finance a massive renovation in 2019.
She hopes the new funding program will remain a consistent part of Canada’s future housing plan, so other co-operatives do not face the same threat, she said.
“The federal government cannot do what it did in the past, where they start (providing funding) and then get out of the game,” she said.
Co-operative housing providers can apply for funding between July 15 and Sept. 15. Fraser said the government is aiming to distribute funds before the end of the year.
Tim Ross, executive director of the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada, said the development sector is “ready to build” once money is in hand.
tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca
Tyler Searle
Reporter
Tyler Searle is a multimedia producer who writes for the Free Press‘s city desk. A graduate of Red River College Polytechnic’s creative communications program, he wrote for the Stonewall Teulon Tribune, Selkirk Record and Express Weekly News before joining the paper in 2022. Read more about Tyler.
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