Supporting non-profit and co-operative housing in Halifax, Nova Scotia

ABSTRACT

The social housing sector is critical in providing housing to a range of households, but housing providers have been met with challenging conditions in recent decades. This study of non-profit and co-operative housing providers and policy makers in Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM), a mid-sized city in Nova Scotia, Canada, found significant resource capacity limitations due their limited size, experience, and awareness of existing policies and programs. Interviews showed that their limited network and political capacity also present significant challenges to expanding their supply. A policy review showed that most current tools, programs, and policies have not been designed to address the capacity limitations in the sector. The recent political shift seen through the 2018 National Housing Strategy could improve the capacity of non-profits and co-ops in Nova Scotia, though this would involve partnerships and consultation with the sector, which would diverge sharply from historical patterns.

KEYWORDS:

• Social housing
• Canada
• co-operative housing
• non-profit housing

Acknowledgments

This study is part of a national, ten-year study, “Neighbourhood Inequality, Diversity, and Change: Trends, Processes, Consequences, and Policy Options for Canada's Large Metropolitan Areas” (principal investigator J. David Hulchanski), , funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Grant [895-2011-1004].

Notes on contributors

Ren Thomas

Ren Thomas is an Associate Professor at the School of Planning at Dalhousie University. She was a member of the Halifax research team on “Neighbourhood Inequality, Diversity, and Change: Trends, Processes, Consequences, and Policy Options for Canada’s Large Metropolitan Areas” (2012–2019, Social Sciences and Humanities Partnership Grant, principal applicant J. David Hulchanski, $2,500,000). With Adriane Salah, she conducted interviews with the co-operative housing providers for this project.

Adriane Salah

Adriane Salah is a planner at the Affordable Housing Association of Nova Scotia. She completed the policy and program review and conducted the interviews with non-profit and co-operative housing providers as part of her Masters independent study project at the School of Planning Dalhousie University.