HomeSpace CEO says finding right land for new housing facility is key

City council recently approved a plan to have a non-profit group, HomeSpace, develop a new kind of supportive housing facility.

The goal is to get a roof over the heads of people who are chronically unhoused and are considered "high-complexity" individuals.

These are people who have high rates of health problems like mental illness and substance abuse disorders. Those issues can be complicated by other illnesses, injuries or trauma.     

As a result, they are frequent users of emergency and crisis-response services and present public safety concerns.

Late last month, city council voted 12-3 to have the city work with HomeSpace and come up with a parcel of public land where the organization could build a supportive housing facility.

Costs related to the transaction would be covered by the city's Housing Land Fund.

HomeSpace is a charity that builds, maintains and manages affordable housing units for vulnerable Calgarians at 33 different existing sites. It also partners with social agencies to provide on-site support services.

CBC News recently interviewed Bernadette Majdell, the CEO of HomeSpace, about the organization's plans for this new and specialized housing facility which will help some of Calgary's most vulnerable citizens.

CBC: Where does HomeSpace start on the development of this type of housing?

BERNADETTE MAJDELL: Part of council's decision was on a lack of land availability that we've had. So I think that'll be the first challenge for us, to sit down with the [city's] real estate team to source an appropriate piece of land for us. The size is an important element, as well as a location close to transit.

There will be a lot of staff supporting this building and so we'll need health care workers, social workers and that piece. So it will be fairly heavily staffed and access to transit will be critical.

So that will be of more importance than being centrally located?

BM: Central is not as important, and some would argue that some of the folks that'll be living in a high-support building maybe shouldn't be central. You know, around the folks that they're usually with and the influence of the downtown core, and so maybe moving outside of the core might be more appropriate.

I think what's most important to us is access to supports and appropriate wrap-around supports. And the size of site that we need in order to build community and to build it the way we consult with community on, I think the downtown core is going to be challenging.  

So even, you know, slightly out of the core. We don't want it so far away from social networks and social supports that people won't stay or want to live there, and so I think it's going to be finding a balance of transit and site size because the design that we've talked about does include a fair bit of outdoor common space so that people are comfortable there and they don't have to necessarily leave their community to continue to build community.

So I think those are the two elements.

In terms of city-owned land, does HomeSpace have a short list of sites in mind that might work, or is it a blank slate?

BM: We gave a fairly broad list to the real estate team, just in terms of our needs, in terms of we're flexible on location. Transit and site size were the biggest ones. So I think they'll go in and pull out some of their sites that may be available and shortlist them to us.

We don't know all the city sites that are available throughout Calgary, so that will be the next step. Once we have them, we've already done some community consultation within the sector on design, with elders, so we really have a good sense of what it'll look like.

We should be able to move fairly quickly once we have a site identified and the City of Calgary already has impressive programs in place around expediting development permits. We feel pretty confident that once we find a site, we should be able to action it relatively quickly.

Council's motion mentioned helping 250 people. Is that how many units you're looking at?

BM: There's 250 people on the list. That's far too large of a building of high needs in one location. We're targeting around 50 individuals to start and then refine the program, refine the design.

If we have to build another one, we can look down the road. But I think the initial need is for 50 [units].

So how long could this take to accomplish?

BM: Realistically, if we're able to identify a site in the next couple of months, then we could move forward.

Again, will it have the appropriate land use designation? It can get complicated.

In a perfect world, next spring [2025] we're breaking ground, by the time we go through design and permitting and all that kind of stuff.

It's important for us at HomeSpace to make sure we're engaging community. So whatever community this is in, the community consultation piece will be an important discussion for us. That usually takes a bit of time. If we can move quicker, we will.