Phase 1

In the first phase of Community Housing Canada, our work was organized around six research groups, referred to as “Areas of Inquiry.” Five of these groups focused on specific aspects of community housing sustainability and resilience. The sixth examined housing vulnerability, producing evidence that intersects with all the other Areas of Inquiry.

Conceptualizing Housing Rights

Enhancing Building Performance

Fostering Social Inclusion

Evaluating Models

Imagining Housing Futures

Housing Vulnerable Canadians

Conceptualizing Housing Rights

Area Lead: Damian Collins

This Area was established in response to Canada’s commitment to progressive realization of the human right to adequate housing in the NHS and NHS Act – a potential paradigm shift in the country’s approach to housing need and vulnerability. Area I asked: What are the implications of the human right to housing for the community housing sector, and what role can the sector play in realizing this right for Canadians? Its objectives focused on understanding of the right in theory and supporting its operationalization in practice.

Work highlights

  • Eviction prevention in community housing. Evictions can breach the right to housing because they involve a loss of housing, are a risk factor for homelessness, and exacerbate vulnerabilities. We explored how community housing providers work to prevent evictions from taking place.
  • Realizing the right to housing for vulnerable groups. Canada’s adoption of the right to housing requires focusing on the most vulnerable, including 12 groups identified in the NHS. In this research, we explored the housing vulnerability of 2SLGBTQ+ refugees.
  • Conceptualizing the right to housing. We have systematically examined international sources to understand the content and outcomes of human rights-based approaches to housing. This study explored how theory has been applied to housing literature.
  • Homelessness as a breach of the right to housing. A sustainable and resilient community housing sector is key to addressing Canada’s homelessness crisis. We have considered why this crisis continues, despite renewed public investments.

Enhancing Building Performance

Area Lead: Runa Das

This Area was established to address the sustainability of community housing buildings, in support of the NHS focus on stabilizing the operations of housing providers, and encouraging innovation in asset management. As such, Area II asked: What approaches to the renewal, design and operation of community housing will address environmental and tenant needs? Its objectives focused on understanding the performance of community housing buildings, and exploring pathways for their transition to sustainable energy futures.

Work Highlights

  • Building benchmarking and energy performance. Benchmarking provides a starting point for assessing the status and energy performance of buildings and to what retrofits may be needed. This research assessed the energy performance of community housing buildings in BC. We found that high-rise buildings performed worse across community housing building types and compared to market housing buildings.
  • Residential vulnerability. Community housing is involved in the transition away from fossil fuels to low-carbon energy. With a focus on justice and equity, we explored how policy lock-ins expose residents to volatile energy markets, energy poverty, and climate
  • Just energy transition pathways. In this project, we identified how community housing systems interact to create challenges and opportunities for energy transition pathways.
  • Quantifying the prevalence of energy poverty in Canada. Energy poverty is a global phenomenon, but is poorly understood in Canada. We examined population data to better understand energy Poverty in Canada. We found that 7-9% of Canadian households are spending more than 10% on their energy bills, which can be traced to poor building quality and high energy costs.

Fostering Social Inclusion

Area Lead: Julia Woodhall-Melnik

This Area was established in response to the NHS goal of supporting a housing system that enables all Canadians to participate fully in social and economic life. As such, Area III asked: How can inclusion be conceptualized, measured, and achieved in the community housing sector? Objectives included investigating barriers and opportunities for social inclusion in community housing, and documenting the impacts of these factors on residents’ lives and wellbeing.

Work Highlights

  • New Brunswick Housing Study. We investigated the mental and physical health implications of social housing for low-income residents in New Brunswick. This work is supported by CIHR, and in partnership with the province’s Department of Social Development and the NB Housing Corporation.
  • New Brunswick Housing Summit.The NB Housing Summit is an ongoing community engagement event that engages local members of the housing, health and social services provision sectors to share and discuss information on the housing market, the need for community housing, and the work of service providers to promote inclusion and wellbeing.
  • Housing for People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD). In partnership with Inclusion New Brunswick, and with additional funding from a SSHRC Insight Development Grant, we are examining the housing landscape for people living with IDD, including those who live in congregate housing, and investigating how policies could be tailored to better support their inclusion. This work attends to the erasure of disability, and in particular people with IDD, in traditional housing policies. It also builds on disability-specific findings from the Without Protection report.

Evaluating Models

Area Lead: Rebecca Schiff

This Area was established in response to NHS supports for diverse providers and models, in order to foster a sustainable community housing system. Area IV asked: What approaches to the organization and delivery of community housing have been developed, and how do they achieve operational efficiencies and meet diverse needs? Its objectives focused on documenting community housing models, evaluating their organizational performance, and assessing their ability to support residents, including members of vulnerable groups.

Work Highlights

  • Community Housing Typologies. We documented the landscape of community housing and presented case studies of a variety of housing providers across Canada. This work provides an open access ‘standard’ for use in characterizing housing providers.
  • Approaches to supporting community housing residents. We are conducting an original examination of anti-racism policies/strategies in community housing – an issue that is important, in part, because of the role of racism in homelessness.
  • Resident well-being in cooperatives. We investigated the ability of, and need for, community housing to promote resident wellbeing, by applying the Canadian Index of Wellbeing to a study of cooperative housing.
  • Contributing to the knowledge of community housing models. We have presented at a variety of related research initiatives, contributing to Community Housing Canada’s scholarly interventions on housing vulnerability.

Imagining Housing Futures

Area Lead: Joshua Evans

This Area was established to explore the future of community housing. In Canada, different forms of community housing have been developed at specific points in time, reflecting specific conjunctures of policy development and welfare state transformation. The result is a diverse but fragmented sector, subject to many pressures. However, renewed engagements under the NHS signal potential regeneration. As such, Area V asked: What imaginaries have shaped the past and present of community housing, and how can it achieve greater impact and sustainability in the future? Its objectives focused on identifying ways of thinking that have structured community housing, as well as those shaping its future, including Indigenous approaches.

Work Highlights

  • Theory building for research on community housing futures. Theory is required to conceptualize the development of the community housing sector and its change over time. Our work began by collaborative developing a theoretical framework exploring housing policy, housing regimes, housing imaginaries, experimentation, social infrastructure, and intermediaries. 
  • Contextualizing the development of community housing. We created a podcast series involving experts who could speak to the history of the sector and situate our current moment in the policies, regimes and imaginaries that have shaped community housing in Canada
  • Policy Deadlocks. We combined insights on the historical trajectory of community housing in Canada with recent literature on the politics of housing to identify a ‘policy deadlock’ in Canada that partially explains why the growth of community housing stalled in the 2000s.
  • Envisioning community housing futures. Since the adoption of the NHS in 2017, there has been renewed engagement and public investment in community housing. To support this change, we examined the applicability of transitions theory to the scaling-up of community housing research that yielded a 4-episode podcast series examining the intersection of community housing and the climate crisis.

Housing Vulnerable Canadians

Co-Leads: Meg Holden & Yushu Zhu

Cross-Cutting Theme (Co-Leads: Meg Holden & Yushu Zhu). The NHS prioritizes the housing needs of those who are vulnerable due to disadvantage or marginalization, and identifies 12 groups that experience housing vulnerability in Canada. The Cross-Cutting Theme was established to enhance understanding of the causes of, and solutions to, housing vulnerability – and to support the Areas of Inquiry in attending to the needs of vulnerable groups.

Work Highlights

  • Defining and understanding housing vulnerability in Canada. To understand housing vulnerability in the Canadian context, we conducted a scoping review of residents of community housing in Alberta and BC. Through this work, we found that housing policy is Canada is increasingly targeted to those in core housing need, with community housing seen as a safety net and last resort for the most vulnerable households. This means the benefits of community housing – including better well-being outcomes (vs. market housing) and innovative supports for tenant needs – are not widely accessible.
  • Building community, social connectedness and resilience among residents. While community housing addresses core housing needs, it can also support needs for social connection and quality of life. Working with three partner organizations, we surveyed residents of both non-profit and market rental buildings on their friendships, connections with neighbours, sense of belonging, and loneliness. We found that the quality and quantity of social connections were associated with well-being.
  • Reconsidering housing vulnerability in research, policy and practice. To advance knowledge of housing vulnerability at the international scale, we edited a special issue of Housing, Theory and Society. It includes eight articles from different world regions and identifies the systemic forces that produce housing vulnerability in diverse contexts.