Affordable Housing for Canada’s Veterans

Core housing for Canada’s population earning a low income and for people at risk of homelessness is an ongoing issue. A large group of this population is under-represented veterans and displaced veterans who have served in the Canadian military, police or first responder organizations. In Edmonton alone, more than 75 people identified as veterans and were homeless. This is despite government programs like VETS Canada and privately run programs like Homes for Heroes.

The Affordable Housing for Canada’s Veterans Solutions Lab intends to create a faster and more affordable solution to housing Canada’s veterans with communities of modular tiny homes. This Lab will challenge today’s housing industry’s technology, production, logistics and financing capacity. It aims to build tiny homes that are affordably financed by veterans while creating equity and reducing homelessness among Canada’s veteran community.

Project scope and expected outcomes

Tiny Homes Communities – starting with Canada’s veterans

Canada’s veterans are one of many populations that struggle to find suitable core housing that meets their needs. Canada has an immediate need to find faster and more affordable solutions to housing, which can be supported through the Affordable Housing for Canada’s Veterans Solutions Lab with Tiny Home Communities.

The Lab will work with partners in the housing sector to create a communal living concept that supports veterans and other populations without secured housing. This includes seniors, Indigenous Peoples and students. The Lab intends to both provide a place for veterans to live and an opportunity for them to participate in an equity-building model. This system will allow residents to purchase a tiny home with the payments they would otherwise put towards rent and break the cycle of poverty. Each tiny home is made available at a low cost so that the housing is easier to produce and affordable to lower-income earners.

The demonstration community village model starts with cluster housing for formerly homeless veterans living in an urban setting but is just as applicable to other priority populations. The barriers to operation, such as zoning and bylaws, will be examined and solutions will be provided so that the housing can reach areas where they are needed.

The Lab has 5 phases:

• The Definition Phase includes project planning and resource sourcing and will see Lab questions created to be answered by sector influencers. This phase refines the problem's focus and provides the scope for the remainder of the project.
• The Discovery Phase includes research to understand the lived experiences of Canada’s veterans who have experienced homelessness. This phase will generate an understanding of the housing system and deliver experience maps and the realities faced by service providers.
• The Development Phase will see new ideas co-developed with the help of Lab stakeholders to address the challenge questions and systematic realities. This phase will also identify potential solutions to address the unique needs of veterans.
• The Prototype and Test Phase will test solutions identified in the previous project phase and host prototype workshops to improve and refine the solutions. At the end of this phase, an assessment of prototypes will measure the solution potential for making progress in solving housing challenges faced by veterans.
• The Roadmap Phase intends to translate the learnings and results from the Lab for implementation in Edmonton and across Canada. This phase will see prototype solutions move from testing to a full-scale working model with partners and defined responsibilities to achieve success. This phase will produce a roadmap for executing the Lab and a way to share the knowledge learned throughout the Lab.

Building empathy with knowledge sharing

Having a strong understanding of the experiences veterans face is key to the success of the Lab. In addition to creating summarized documents for each phase, the goal of this Lab is to build empathy among community members. The story of veterans who face homelessness in Canada will be shared through:

• a project website
• monthly lab e-newsletters
• a podcast series that will highlight the challenges veterans face in finding housing
• a community action work near the end of the Lab to bring community partners together on project findings and to move forward with promising solutions