Canada’s housing co-ops meet in Halifax to address housing crisis with more co-op homes

For Immediate Release (Halifax, June 15, 2022) –  Over 500 housing co-op members and staff from across Canada are meeting this week in Halifax for the 54th Annual Meeting of the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada (CHF Canada).

Participants will gather from June 15 to 18 at the Halifax Convention Centre to learn, network and celebrate the recent successes:

• protecting low-income households that were under threat of expiring federal and provincial funding.
• securing the Co-operative Housing Development Program with $1.5 billion in federal funding over five years to develop 6,000 new co-op homes – the first federal co-op housing development program in over 30 years!

“We have much to celebrate as we secure the future of existing housing co-ops and look to a promising next wave of co-op housing development, like the new Maitland Street development in Halifax,” said CHF Canada President Tina Stevens.

“We are extremely pleased to have had great success in our advocacy work, though we still have more to accomplish,” says CHF Canada Executive Director Tim Ross.  “There is the unresolved need for a robustly-funded urban, northern and rural Indigenous housing strategy, which our members are calling on the federal government to deliver.”

Besides these campaigns, the Annual Meeting will include several other highlights on Saturday, June 18:

• Two keynote speakers, Tareq Hadhad (Peace Chocolates) and former Halifax Poet Laureate Dr. El Jones will address issues of diversity, equity and inclusion.
• Halifax Mayor Mike Savage, Nova Scotia Housing Minister John Lohr, and Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Housing Diversity and Inclusion, will deliver remarks as we seek to partner with all levels of government to address Canada’s housing and homelessness crisis.

For more information go to https://chfcanada.coop/agm2022/

CHF Canada is the national voice of co-operative housing, representing 2,200 housing co-operatives, home to a quarter of a million people in every province and territory. Co-operative housing is a well-documented success story. For over 50 years, co-ops have provided good-quality, affordable housing owned and managed by the community members who live there.

For more information or to schedule an interview, please contact:

Dallas Alderson, Director, Public Affairs and Policy, 613-715-3323 (mobile), dalderson@chfcanada.coop

Scott Jackson, Manager, Communications, 778-227-3864 (mobile), sjackson@chfcanada.coop