Joshua Evans, AHSL Research Lead As news circulates regarding the announcement that 130 homeless encampments will be cleared by the Edmonton Police Service beginning on December 18, a week before Christmas, it is imperative to take stock of what this decision means, both morally and politically. How has this become such a routine measure in […]
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Sustainable Housing for Community Well-Being: The Story of Green Violin
Joshua Evans, Affordable Housing Solutions Lab There are many different types of housing developers: big, small, for-profit, non-profit, eco-friendly, community-led, just to name a few. Whether large or small, for-profit or non-profit, the decisions of these housing developers are influenced by a similar set of factors: availability of land, land-use bylaws, housing policy, and financing. […]
The Financialization of Housing: Multi-Family Rentals in Edmonton
Like all communities across Canada, Edmonton has a housing problem. And despite many best efforts, this crisis only continues to worsen. How can we best understand and fix this issue of (in)access to adequate housing? The key to understanding and effectively addressing our housing crisis is to take a human rights approach (UNHRC 2019). One […]
The Financialization of Housing: The Alberta Advantage
Why does Edmonton seem to be a magnet for financialized primary or multi-family rental housing?*Note: blog was updated June 28, 2023 Like all communities across Canada, Edmonton has a housing problem. And despite many best efforts, this crisis only continues to worsen. How can we best understand and fix this issue of (in)access to adequate […]
The Financialization of Housing: The role of transparency
Without knowing who actually owns our housing, how can we understand what is really going on? And how can we hold owners and landlords accountable to tenants? Find out why it is so hard to trace ownership, and how this impacts our housing crisis. Like all communities across Canada, Edmonton has a housing problem. And despite many […]
The Financialization of Housing: What types exist?
To unpack and make sense of our housing crisis in Edmonton, learn about 8 ways housing is financialized with local examples. Which include: Mortgages; Single-Family Rentals; Multi-Family Rentals; Seniors’ Housing; Social Housing; Student Housing; Short-Term Rentals; & Mobile Home Communities (August 2022). Like all communities across Canada, Edmonton has a housing problem. And despite many […]
The Financialization of Housing: What Is It?
How can we understand the financialization of housing? What does it mean? And can this help us make sense of our current housing crisis? Like all communities across Canada, Edmonton has a housing problem. And despite many best efforts, this crisis only continues to worsen. How can we best understand and fix this issue of […]
Building a Just City
Joshua Evans, AHSL Research Lead I had the privilege of contributing to a panel organized as part of this year’s City Building Conference, an event convened by the Centre for Cities and Community at the University of Alberta. The topic of the panel was “Building a Just City.” I was joined by four amazing panelists […]
An Interview with Cheyenne Greyeyes and Celina Vipond
What is home? Wisdom from nêhiyawêwin Indigenous-led housing is a critical solution to homelessness in Canada. Here in Edmonton, MacEwan University professor Dr. Cynthia Puddu has been leading a study exploring how one housing organization, Niginan Housing Ventures, is fostering spiritual reconnection within their housing programs (for more information on this study click here). This […]
Reflecting on the AHSL Experience in Edmonton
This past February, Dr. Joshua Evans delivered a presentation exploring the AHSL’s experimentation with the ‘social innovation lab’ approach. A social innovation lab brings diverse stakeholders together who work collaboratively to address complex social problems. In 2021-2022, the AHSL established a social innovation lab called The Pivot. This social innovation lab was unique in the […]
“We are stronger together”
Tenant Organizing and the Right to Adequate Housing Security of tenure is an essential part of adequate housing. Yet tenants too often are powerless in our housing system – a system in which landlords and real estate interests are themselves highly organized and well-resourced. More attention is being paid to tenant circumstances and the need […]
Hamilton Tenant Solidarity Network: Recommended Resources & Organizing Guides
The AHSL recently hosted a panel on Tenant Organizing as part of our Right to Housing Series. For those interested in learning more about this topic, the Hamilton Tenant Solidarity Network (HTSN) generously shared some recommended readings, a documentary, and adaptable organizing guides: Recommended reading: “Rent Striking the REIT: Reflections on tenant organizing against financialized […]
Renter Realities and Another Housing Policy Paradox
Update: On March 27 2023, from what appears to be pressure from the commercial real estate sector, changes to Canada’s Prohibition on the Purchase of Residential Property by Non-Canadians Act were implemented: In addition, newcomers with a work visa with a minimum of 183 days remaining are able to purchase property.More details here. The Federal Government […]
Tenant Realities & Realizing the Right to Housing in Edmonton
Part of the work of the AHSL is exploring access to adequate housing. Within this context, tenant organizing is an area of increasing interest that community members, community partners, and the public (especially renters) are interested in learning more about. Particularly as tenant organizing and collective bargaining is one way that households and individuals may […]
Protect, Enhance, Grow: Investing in Edmonton’s Community Housing Sector
By: Bon Swanson & Joshua Evans, Affordable Housing Solutions Lab Introduction Like food, water and education, adequate housing is a fundamental human right. Today, Canada’s housing system is unable to fulfil this basic human right for everyone. Housing deprivation among vulnerable populations remains a pressing issue in Canadian society. It has been more than two […]
Pivot Progress Report & Upcoming Final Pivot Event
Making the Pivot: Designing Participatory Action Research for Housing Justice in Edmonton, Alberta BackgroundLike water, food, education and healthcare, adequate housing is essential to human dignity and wellbeing and is therefore a human right. This was recognized nearly 75 years ago in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states, in Article 25, that: Everyone […]
Sustainable housing, sustainable community: Exploring Edmonton’s North Glenora affordable housing project
Written By: Arlene Oak, Associate Professor, Department of Human Ecology, University of Alberta & Sara Dorow, Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Alberta Opened in 2018, the non-profit North Glenora Townhomes housing development, comprised of 16 three- and five-bedroom townhomes, is one of Canada’s first and largest net-zero, multi-family residential developments. The story behind this […]
Takeaways from Making the Pivot Part 1: Taking action to secure the right to adequate housing in Edmonton
This first virtual workshop was intended to develop some shared understanding of key concepts (equity, inclusion, and justice), establish guidelines for brave spaces in the conversations going forward, and reflect on our own social positions and relative access and power. Key Concepts Equality vs. Equity Image Source:https://www.rwjf.org/en/library/infographics/visualizing-health-equity.html Equity ensures that everyone has what they need […]
Housing Innovation: The Cost of Land Acquisition
Our third post in a series of blog posts around our deep dive, ‘How to Build More Affordably” and the lessons we learnt. Find the first post and our overview video here. Written by: Shafraaz Kaba, Principal, ASK For a Better World In our exploration of the major costs in affordable housing, the cost of land […]
Pivot Information Session
On October 14 the AHSL held an information and Q&A session about the upcoming Pivot initiative on Zoom. This was recorded, and can be viewed here: We appreciate all of the thoughtful questions from our attendees, and will be updating this blog entry shortly with some additional information in response. If you were unable to […]
Pivot Invitation
We are excited to begin our (pilot) Pivot process and are seeking a diverse group of 40 – 60 individuals to join us. We are pleased to invite… First Voice Advocates / Individuals with Lived Experience aiming for at least 50% of all participants Academics Professors, Postdoctoral Researchers, PhD Candidates/Students, Masters Students, Undergraduate Students & […]
Housing Innovation: Contracting the Design and Construction Team Differently
Our second post in a series of blog posts around our deep dive, ‘How to Build More Affordably” and the lessons we learnt. Find the first post and our overview video here. Written by: Shafraaz Kaba, Principal, ASK For a Better World One of the simplest ways to reduce the cost of housing is to […]
Learning from Our Deep Dive on How Can We Build More Affordably?
The Affordable Housing Solutions Lab culminated in the prototyping phase this Summer. It has been a flurry of activity over the winter and spring, as the Innovations teams focused on new construction and retrofit sites and workshopped almost on a weekly basis. During these sessions, the Innovation teams went down a few rabbit holes but ultimately […]
Municipal Policy Levers for the Creation and Maintenance of Affordable Housing
By. Ariel MacDonald M.A., Research Assistant, Affordable Housing Solutions Lab Municipalities are often “stuck between a rock and a hard place”: they are closest to the problem of housing affordability but often lack the financial resources and authority to tackle it. What levers do municipalities have at their disposal? The levers available to municipal governments […]
Who’s Invited…
Who is Invited to our Access to Housing Choice Series? We are pleased to invite… all members from our diverse disability communities all disability allies and advocates (including friends and family members) all housing advocates academics architects builders civil servants designers developers engineers manufacturers non-market / public housing sector (all involved) planners policy decision makers […]
Access to Housing Series: Core Principles
We ask all attendees participating in our Access to Housing Series to respect & uphold our Core Principles: Housing is a human right Listen to understand, not respond Be compassionately curious, not critical Right time, right place, right people – to move a conversation forward Courage to invite people in, rather than judge or call […]
The Affordability of Rental Apartments and Townhouses in Edmonton in 2020
The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation released their annual rental market report a few months ago. The report analyzes market trends in large population centres in Canada for the year 2020. Included in the tables that accompanied the release of the report is data on the number of apartments and townhouses in the primary rental market […]
Social Architecture: Cures for COVID Isolation – A Virtual Symposium
On April 21, 2021, seven panelists joined the Affordable Housing Solutions Lab and Green Violin Community Development Company to discuss a post-pandemic world where architecture and planning can provide solutions to safely connect people and communities again. Leaders from Architecture, Urban Design, and Community Programming came together at an intersection where we might find solutions […]
Tough Enough to Survive? – A Virtual Symposium on Durability in Affordable Housing
On March 10, 2021 representatives from eight community housing providers gathered for a virtual meeting to discuss innovations in building design and construction. The conversation was rich and went beyond the physical structure of housing to explore the meaning of durability in the fullest sense of the term. The virtual event was co-sponsored by the […]
Fellow Reflection: Yasushi Ohki
Written by Yasushi Ohki The Fellowship Program brings together experiential partners, researchers, practitioners, housing providers, policymakers, planners and housing advocates to collaborate over a 6-month term. During this time, Fellows work together to identify and explore innovative affordable housing solutions and to provide the lab direction with regard to community learning activities. These blog posts will […]
Fellow Reflection: Eric Storey
Written by Eric Storey The Fellowship Program brings together experiential partners, researchers, practitioners, housing providers, policymakers, planners and housing advocates to collaborate over a 6-month term. During this time, Fellows work together to identify and explore innovative affordable housing solutions and to provide the lab direction with regard to community learning activities. These blog posts will […]
Fellow Reflection: David Prodan
Written by David Prodan The Fellowship Program brings together experiential partners, researchers, practitioners, housing providers, policymakers, planners and housing advocates to collaborate over a 6-month term. During this time, Fellows work together to identify and explore innovative affordable housing solutions and to provide the lab direction with regard to community learning activities. These blog posts will […]
Fellow Reflection: Roxanne Ulanicki
Written by Roxanne Ulanicki The Fellowship Program brings together experiential partners, researchers, practitioners, housing providers, policymakers, planners and housing advocates to collaborate over a 6-month term. During this time, Fellows work together to identify and explore innovative affordable housing solutions and to provide the lab direction with regard to community learning activities. These blog posts will […]
The Right to Housing in Edmonton: What are your Rights when Renting?
The Affordable Housing Solution Lab (AHSL) is pleased to share our 1st activity in a series focused on the Right to Housing in Edmonton. This video is a zoom recording of a Feb. 24/21 lunch & learn panel session featuring the topic: ‘What are your rights when renting? Invited panelists: * Dr. Damian Collins, University […]
Reflections on Deep Dive Workshop #3
Update: The Edmonton Affordable Housing Solutions Lab is nearing the completion of the prototyping phase. Two teams have been working diligently since December in creating prototype solutions with one team considering an existing building retrofit checklist and the other developing a framework for new housing. The teams have leveraged the diverse skills and experiences from […]
Fellow Reflection: Shima A. Robinson
Written by Affordable Housing Solutions Lab Fellow, Shima A. Robinson The Fellowship Program brings together experiential partners, researchers, practitioners, housing providers, policymakers, planners and housing advocates to collaborate over a 6-month term. During this time, Fellows work together to identify and explore innovative affordable housing solutions and to provide the lab direction with regard to […]
Upcoming Event: Tough Enough to Survive, A Virtual Discussion Panel
The Affordable Housing Solutions Lab would like to invite you to a symposium on durability in affordable housing. Join us on March 10th! Find all the details and register here. Affordable By Design? Exploring ‘Durability’ in Affordable Housing About this Event Organizations that operate affordable housing need a building that is efficient and durable and which […]
Fellow Reflection: Nadine Chalifoux
Written by Affordable Housing Solutions Lab Fellow, Nadine Chalifoux The Fellowship Program brings together experiential partners, researchers, practitioners, housing providers, policymakers, planners and housing advocates to collaborate over a 6-month term. During this time, Fellows work together to identify and explore innovative affordable housing solutions and to provide the lab direction with regard to community […]
Introducing the AHSL Fellows (2020-2021)
The Affordable Housing Solutions Lab is based at the University of Alberta and MacEwan University. The purpose of the lab is to support Edmontonians in the innovation and development of effective local affordable housing solutions. This work is undertaken in partnership with a diverse group of housing stakeholders. The aim is to collectively generate and […]
Reflections on Deep Dive Workshop #2
The second workshop in our deep dive created space to learn from others in innovative ways, and to break out into two teams to tackle the challenge. We started the day off by hearing from our first guest speaker, Mark Erickson, from Studio NORTH. Mark shared the project they had developed which won the City […]
Upcoming Event: The Right to Housing In Edmonton – What Are Your Rights When Renting?
The Affordable Housing Solutions Lab (AHSL) welcomes you to join us on Zoom for the first in a series of events on realizing the right to housing. No need to register, you can just join in the Zoom link here: https://ualberta-ca.zoom.us/j/92730439565. We look forward to seeing you!
Edmonton Rental Market – Year in Review (2020)
Image Source: IQRemix; Link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/iqremix/42276507674/in/photostream/ The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation released their annual rental market report a few weeks ago. The report analyzes market trends in large population centres in Canada for the year 2020. Here are three highlights from the report for metro Edmonton: Vacancy goes up, average rent stays the same The […]
Guest Spotlight: “If Minivans Were Manufactured Like Houses”
Written by Yasushi Ohki, Executive Director of Green Violin. Yasushi was raised in Edmonton and has called it home since completing degrees in civil engineering (University of Alberta) and architecture (University of British Columbia). For over 22 years, he has worked in the land development industry, including greenfield development, infill residential construction and project management. […]
Reflections on Deep Dive Workshop #1
What does success look like? This was our guiding question for our first deep dive workshop with industry experts and folks from the non-profit housing sector. Over an afternoon Shafraaz Kaba, our stellar facilitator, led our group through a series of exercises to answer the question, “what does success look like?”. There were a few […]
Upcoming Event: Housing Post-Pandemic
Not Back to Normal: Housing Post-Pandemic Part of the Pandemonium: Urban Studies and Recovering from COVID-19 lecture series from Simon Fraser University. Normal was not good enough before the pandemic — especially when talking about housing affordability, access and sustainability. Our Metro Vancouver Regional Growth Strategy is currently under review, toward a revised Metro 2050 plan. How […]
What does it take to make a home?
By: Shafraaz Kaba, Principal, ASK For a Better World Along with our facilitator, Shafraaz Kaba, we are beginning to work with industry experts and folks from the non-profit housing sector to think about housing affordability. We will document this journey here. Please see below for our first post detailing the start of this journey. What […]
Upcoming Event on Garden Suites
Upcoming Event on Housing and Homelessness
For more information click on link here
Graduate Student Opportunity (Master of Arts) – Community Housing Futures
Dr. Joshua Evans is seeking a full-time, master’s student to join the Community Housing Canada team beginning May 2021 or September 2021. This is a 2-year, fully-funded graduate opportunity ($23,282.24/year) and is based in the Human Geography Program (Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences) at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta. Working under the […]
ABSI Connect: The AHSL Story
Our friends over at ABSI (Alberta Social Innovation) Connect, are a collective of Alberta-based organizations and individuals who want to address the root causes of today’s most pressing issues and believe this requires working and learning together. They work to find, connect, celebrate, and support Albertans who are creating and testing new ways of approaching […]
Webinar: Community Approaches to Affordable Housing
Join Joshua Evans, assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, for the latest Science Connects Webinar as he examines various policy approaches to housing affordability. Housing is a social determinant of health and a key ingredient in the wellbeing of individuals and communities. Moreover, housing, like education and health care, is now […]
The Human Right to Adequate Housing
By: Damian Collins and Sophie L. Stadler (Human Geography Program, University of Alberta and Community Housing Canada Research Partnership) Adequate housing is a human right because it is central to dignity, autonomy and wellbeing. It means more than just having a roof over one’s head – it also means having a home, and a foundation […]
What is the Affordable Housing Solutions Lab?
By: Joshua Evans, Research Lead Today it is common knowledge that housing is a social determinant of health and a key ingredient in the well-being of individuals and communities. Moreover, housing, like education and health care, is now widely seen as a human right. Yet, a significant number of Edmontonians are regularly denied access to […]
University of Alberta Blog Post
The University of Alberta covered the Affordable Housing Solutions Lab in a new piece on June 16th. Please find it below. Just a note that Kalen Pilkington has replaced Dr. Leo Wong as the co-director at MacEwan. We are very pleased to welcome her to our team! https://www.ualberta.ca/science/news/2020/june/housing-edmonton-affordable.html
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