Winning Research to Shape Future of Housing in Canada

Ottawa, December 5, 2019

Canadian researchers were recognized today for outstanding work that will help shape the future of housing in Canada. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC)’s Housing Research Awards program is part of the National Housing Strategy (NHS) announced by the Government of Canada in 2017. CMHC President and Chief Executive Officer Evan Siddall presented the awards during an Innovation for Housing workshop in Ottawa this week.

“Finding innovative approaches to addressing Canada’s housing challenges is an essential step in creating the caring, inclusive and prosperous society we strive to be,” Siddall said. “Congratulations to all Housing Research Award recipients, and also to all of those who submitted their work to the program for consideration.”

The Housing Research Awards recognize and promote excellence and innovation in research, and help foster a better understanding of housing needs and solutions that help Canadians access housing that meets their needs and that they can afford. A panel of experts reviewed the applications following a stringent set of criteria to identify the projects with potential to have the greatest impact on housing affordability and advancements in housing research.

The 2019 Housing Research Award recipients are:

Partnerships for Affordable Housing: Policy, Planning, and Community Building received the CMHC President’s Medal for Outstanding Housing Research. Sasha Tsenkova of the University of Calgary accepted the award on behalf of the project team. This award recognizes research excellence in a thematic area as selected by the President of CMHC and comes with a $20,000 cash prize. The theme for 2019 was Network Solutions for Housing Affordability.

Understanding How the First LGBTQ2S Transitional Shelther Impacts Youth’s Outcomes received the Gold Roof Award for Housing Research Excellence. Alex Abramovich of the Center for Addiction and Mental Health accepted the award, which recognizes an outstanding research contribution to the one of the priority areas of the National Housing Strategy. The award comes with a $10,000 cash prize.

The Metro Vancouver Transit-Oriented Affordable Housing Study also received the Gold Roof Award for Housing Research Excellence. The award comes with a $10,000 cash prize.

There are also three winners for 2019 of the North Star Travel Award for Northern or Remote Research. The award is for researchers conducting research or fieldwork in northern or remote parts of Canada. Each award comes with a $5,000 travel bursary. The recipients are:

Charles-Olivier Simard, a doctoral student at Université de Montréal, will be conducting research on Inuit household preferences in Kangiqsualujjuaq, Nunavik, Quebec.

Shannen Doyle, a student at Ryerson University in Toronto, will be undertaking a community needs assessment in the Yellowknife, Northwest Territories for the Dene First Nation.

Holly Monkman, a student at Ryerson University in Toronto, will be supporting the development of a strategy to address the ongoing housing crisis in 49 Nishnawbe Aski First Nations communities in northern Ontario.

As Canada's authority on housing, CMHC contributes to the stability of the housing market and financial system, provides support for Canadians in housing need, and offers unbiased housing research and advice to all levels of Canadian government, consumers and the housing industry. For more information, please follow us on Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

For more information contact:

Audrey-Anne Coulombe
Media Relations, CMHC
613-748-2573
acoulomb@cmhc-schl.gc.ca

Backgrounder: CMHC Housing Research Awards

Quick facts:

The CMHC Housing Research Awards highlight achievements in research, research training, knowledge mobilization and outreach activities.
The CMHC Housing Research Awards build on and sustain Canada’s research-based knowledge culture across all fields, including social sciences and humanities, health and technology.
The Housing Research Awards program provides monetary awards for impactful housing research as well as a travel award to support research activities in Northern or remote areas.
There are four awards which can be provided annually:
- CMHC President’s Medal for Outstanding Housing Research ($20,000)
- Gold Roof Award for Housing Research Excellence ($10,000)
- Gold Roof Award for Knowledge to Action ($10,000)
- North Star Travel Award for Northern or Remote Research (up to $5,000)

The NHS includes $241 million over 10 years to support research on housing needs and conditions, the housing finance system, market stability and housing sector innovation.
The NHS is an ambitious 10-year, $40-billion plan that will reduce or eliminate 530,000 families from housing need across Canada, create 100,000 new housing units, as well as repair and renew more than 300,000 housing units and reduce chronic homelessness by 50 per cent.

Winning Submissions
Award	Project Title/Description	Recipients/Project Location
President’s Medal for Outstanding Housing Research	Partnerships for Affordable Housing : Policy, Planning and Community Building The research initiative focused on a key priority in the NHS by exploring innovative multi-sectoral partnerships for affordable housing in mixed income, mixed tenure projects in large Canadian cities. Supported by SSHRC and community partners, the RI created an engaging platform for housing practitioners and researchers implementing innovative solutions. It provided important new directions through identification of policy instruments, best practices, international experiences and effective dissemination of scientific knowledge using a web-based platform (hub).	Sasha Tsenkova, University of Calgary, Alberta
Gold Roof Award for Housing Research Excellence	Understanding How Canada’s First LGBTQ2S Transitional Housing Program Impacts Outcomes for Youth The research focuses on preventing, reducing, and ending LGBTQ2S YYA homelessness. The overall research goals are to gain a better understanding of what leads to homelessness, systemic and structural barriers to housing, health and wellbeing, what hinders successful exits out of homelessness, and to create prevention strategies and best practice guidelines that will allow us to end LGBTQ2S YYA homelessness across Canada.	Alex Abramovich, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Ontario
Gold Roof Award for Housing Research Excellence	Metro Vancouver Transit-Oriented Affordable Housing Study The Transit-Oriented Affordable Housing (TOAH) Study provides crucial information to practitioners (land use planners, housing planners, and transportation planners), non-market and market developers, financiers, and policymakers at all levels of government on the challenges and opportunities to deliver purpose-built rental housing that is affordable to lower income households and located near frequent transit. The TOAH Study builds on Metro Vancouver’s Housing and Transportation Cost Burden Study, which found that housing and transportation make up the largest share of household expenditures.	Metro Vancouver Regional District, British Columbia
North Star Travel Award for Northern or Remote Research	This doctoral thesis aims to gain a better understanding of the formation and dissolution of households within Inuit communities in Canada. The research methodology will include a combination of quantitative data analysis as well as qualitative fieldwork.	Charles-Olivier Simard, Université de Montréal, Quebec
North Star Travel Award for Northern or Remote Research	Yellowknife Dene First Nation Housing Strategy Yellowknife Dene First Nation (YKDFN) has identified the availability of adequate, affordable, and appropriate housing for their membership as a critical priority. In partnership with Together Design Lab from Ryerson University (TDL), the YKDFN are looking beyond existing programs towards the creation and implementation of a community-based solution, the YKDFN Housing Strategy. The unique climatic, geographic and cultural factors of YKDFN have meant existing one-size fits-all government interventions have and continue to fail. This research project looks to complement the development of the YKDFN Housing Strategy through undertaking a community-based housing needs assessment. Differing from existing needs assessment models, this community-based approach recognizes that existing metrics do not capture the lived experience of community members, their struggle to obtain adequate housing, their desire for more culturally appropriate homes or the impact on members of the current failing system.	Shannen Doyle, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario
North Star Travel Award for Northern or Remote Research	Nishnawbe Aski Nation Housing Strategy Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN), a political territorial organization with 49 member First Nations in northern Ontario is experiencing an ongoing collective housing crisis, which impacts individual and community well-being. The NAN Housing Strategy is a three-year project, currently in its third of five phases, aimed at creating occupant-focused housing assessments, determining localized housing need, and developing housing action plans and solutions at the community and regional level. The research will centre First Nations knowledge and lived experience in understanding current housing need and potential solutions recognizing the autonomy of individual First Nation in in the planning, governance and design of their housing systems. The Nishnawbe Aski Nation Housing Strategy proposes path forward for creating community self-determination in housing systems.	Holly Monkman, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario