Some church properties in Edmonton could be repurposed into affordable housing spaces under a new city program called the Faith Lands Affordable Housing Incentive that was launched Monday.
The city and the Edmonton Community Foundation announced the $2-million collaborative grant program at St. Faith’s Anglican Church, near 118th Avenue and 93rd Street.
About $1 million comes from the federal government’s Housing Accelerator Fund initiative.
Rev. Travis Enright, the rector at St. Faith’s, said many congregations see the need for providing safe and affordable homes, and he’s working to foster as much community engagement as possible.
He said his church plans to build 40 to 45 units on its parking lot, and to create a community space at the back of the actual church.
“So people are not living in isolation in those boxes, that they can come down and have a whole set of experiences and engage their spirit, engage their physicality, engage their emotions,” Enright said during the announcement.
One of the Edmonton Community Foundation’s main priorities is housing, according to Ryan Young, the group’s executive director of Impact Investment.
“We want to bring new players into the housing initiative, whether it’s new landowners, new community groups, new investors, new philanthropists,” he said. “We really want to help convene and renew people to address this topic.
“We are quite flexible on how we work with different community groups to address affordable housing.
“Sometimes it’s slightly below market, sometimes it’s deeply subsidized. So from our point of view, we really want to help house all levels of the spectrum.”
The Edmonton Community Foundation is a non-governmental organization that helps fund charities in a variety of sectors.
“By helping congregations in early stages of redevelopment, we can unlock new affordable housing for future generations,” Mayor Andrew Knack said in a news release Monday.
Vacant churches
“Most faith-based properties were built decades ago when congregational needs, budgets and neighbourhood compositions were much different,” says a city report for the Faith Lands Housing Incentive.
Thousands of churches across Canada have closed since 2009 with another 9,000 faith buildings expected to follow, according to the Canadian Urban Institute.
Some churches have land in established neighbourhoods, near transit and other amenities.
Redevelopment can unlock underused land or reduce financial pressures from aging buildings, a city news release said.
The incentive program announced on Monday gives congregations flexibility to tailor projects to their unique situations while facilitating partnerships with non-profit affordable housing providers, the city said.
The program allows developers to apply for grants of up to $135,000 to do pre-construction work like environmental assessments, feasibility studies and to fulfil other technical requirements that can sometimes delay the process.
The city and Edmonton Community Foundation will review the applications before they’re approved.
According to the city, one in eight households and one in four renter households pay too much for housing — at least 30 per cent of their income — or live in crowded or unsafe conditions and can’t afford to move.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation recently gave the City of Edmonton $9.6 million to support projects that help remove barriers to housing development.
Companies have until the end of the year to apply for grants under the new program.