ECOH Event Explores the Rental Housing Ecosystem in Canada

The Expert Community on Housing (ECOH) platform held a series of events in 2021 and 2022 to encourage dialogue and insights with ECOH members from the Affordable Housing Landscape. This event sought to understand the relationships between key players involved in the creation and adoption of innovations related to rental housing in Canada. The outcomes of the event were summarized in a final report on how to bring these innovative ideas to a larger number of key stakeholders.

Project scope and expected outcomes

Exploration of the Rental Housing Ecosystem in Canada

The Rental Housing Event on ECOH was a 2-day virtual event to learn about how different industry professionals work together to create, use and adopt new ideas related to rental housing in Canada. The event brought together:

• National Housing Strategy funded project recipients and key industry players to share knowledge and solutions
• rental housing professionals to provide information on advancements in knowledge of policy development

A chance to meet the different players in the rental housing ecosystem

There were 12 participants who spoke and collaborated at the rental housing event. These experts were divided into 3 “persona” groups:

• Innovation Creators. Professionals who have produced impactful results with National Housing Strategy funded projects. Further these projects can be replicated, adopted, or scaled. Examples include tech tools, guides and training.
• Innovation Users. Organizations with the resources and decision-making authority to use innovative ideas, like developers or housing managers.
• Innovation Supporters. Organizations with the authority to create or influence public policy to support these innovative ideas. These types of organizations include federal, provincial and municipal governments, academia and think tanks.

Speakers were asked to reflect on their relationships to the housing ecosystem and identify what their needs were to survive and thrive. Several common themes emerged during the first days of discussions. But, in the end the following were identified as impactful.

• Demographic change
• Decarbonization of buildings
• Effects of the pandemic
• Cost optimization
• Future proofing of the workforce

Day 1: Connecting, collaborating, reaching out to different areas of expertise

Our first day focussed on sharing ideas with the broader ECOH community and the public. Each organization provided an overview of their projects and had a facilitated discourse allowing them to draw connections, collaborate and draw from beyond their own respective expertise.

These were the event objectives:

• Improving awareness about the current state of rental housing in Canada and the different organizations that work to improve it.
• Connecting the community that innovates in this space with those that may benefit from these ideas and vice versa.
• Understanding how the ecosystem of rental housing innovation works and discuss opportunities for improvement.

Day 2: Deep dive into the theme of cost optimization

Participants dove deeper into emerging trends in the rental market. They created a detailed cost optimization ecosystem map based on the theme from Day 1. A list of ideas of areas for further exploration was created:

• Values framework – What would rental housing look like if there was an abundance? Can we focus our efforts on the human right to housing?
• Housing workforce capacity – How can we create a better kit of parts to make building sustainably easier?
• Housing policy and regulation – How can we streamline regulations and recognize that the private and public sector have roles to play here?
• Supply – How do we make sure we create net new supply? Can home sharing and rooming houses be a part of the solution?
• Demand – Can we help with demand through income supports? Are we building the right kind of housing with appropriate supports?

The event culminated in a final report and a detailed mind-map* written and designed by external consultants.

A note about the first ECOH Event on transitional and supportive housing

Our inaugural event was on Transitional and Supportive Housing held in December of 2021.

Transitional housing offers its residents tools, knowledge and opportunities to allow for greater independence. It’s considered an intermediate step between emergency shelter and permanent housing.

Supportive housing also provides support services, however, is intended to be permanent.

There were participants from both the not-for-profit, public, and private sectors. Each participant adopted “personas”, that of Housing Innovator or Housing Adopter of Innovation. This event connected nicely with the rental housing event by informing the ECOH community about the required housing types and supports needed in the rental housing space.

About ECOH

ECOH is a virtual platform meant to build community between people with diverse experiences in housing, bringing them together to share, collaborate and network. ECOH has over 1800 members with 100 different areas of expertise.

This event was designed, organized and hosted by the ECOH Team at CMHC in March of 2022.

* A mind map is an innovative type of diagram that visually links a central subject or concept to related concepts, ideas, words, items, or tasks. In our mind map, we looked at the barriers, enablers and dependencies that connect different parts of the rental housing ecosystem as described by our participants.