Many funding announcements for affordable housing carry a quiet asterisk: affordable for now. Government agreements run for a limited period, after which units can revert to market rent.
The nearly $29 million the Government of Canada confirmed last Thursday, July 16, for Currie, one of Onward's active developments in southwest Calgary, doesn't carry that asterisk. Because Onward is a charity with no shareholders and no equity to extract, these homes stay affordable permanently.
The funding, delivered through the Affordable Housing Fund and the Federal Lands Initiative, is going toward 72 homes already under construction: a four-storey apartment building with 50 one-bedroom and 12 two-bedroom units, 16 of them fully accessible, and a three-storey townhome development built for women and children, with eight three-bedroom and two four-bedroom units. The land came through a partnership with Canada Lands Company, part of a federal effort to put surplus government land to use for affordable housing rather than sell it into the private market.
For the families who move in, permanence changes the math of everyday life. A parent isn't budgeting around a rent increase that pushes them out of their kids' school district. A woman rebuilding after leaving an unsafe home isn't wondering whether the stability she's found has a countdown on it. Across Onward's portfolio, the average stay for residents can exceed 6 years, long enough for neighbours to become the people who notice when something's wrong.
"Access to adequate, affordable housing is the foundation for socio-economic success," said the Honourable Julie Dabrusin, Minister of Environment, Climate Change and Nature, who made the announcement on behalf of Minister of Housing and Infrastructure Gregor Robertson.
Onward has applied this model across a portfolio of nearly 2,300 homes in 34 buildings since 1976. Currie lands in the charity's 50th year, and it's the first project underway in a development pipeline of nearly 700 homes across six sites, a sign the model is still expanding a half century in.
Fifty years in, Onward has yet to put an asterisk on a single home. Currie will be no different - affordable now means affordable forever! Onward thanks the Government of Canada, the City of Calgary, and Canada Lands Company for the partnership behind it.
