Ground broken for new affordable housing unit in Regina

A new affordable housing unit is being built in Regina’s North Central neighbourhood.

The North Central Family Centre is working with the Rapid Housing Initiative (RHI), which partnered with the city and federal government to bring the new, much-needed supportive housing unit to the neighbourhood.

Kimberley Wenger, the executive director of the North Central Family Centre, said the building is going to be a great addition to the city.

“It feels really good. We’ve been working at this really hard for the last eight months. The community is excited about it (and) the kids are excited to see it grow and help in the process,” she said.

It will have 30 different units ranging from studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom units.

“It will be very intergenerational, which will be youth and young people just trying to get a headstart in life and have a safe space to work on themselves and build a vision for their future, and elders, families, single parents — all sorts of folks,” said Wenger.

The building is not shelter based; it’s considered second or third stage housing.

“Supports will be on the ground floor, so it’s not 24/7 supportive living, but it’s kind of wraparound — almost a co-operative feel without the ownership,” she said.

She said a housing unit like this could help house those who have been evicted from the camp at City Hall.

“Everyone’s got their different circumstances,” Wenger said. “We’re working on the operational part of it now that we’re at this phase with construction. So with our partners, we’ll find a good process for that.”

She said people coming off the street with addiction and mental health problems could find the help they need at the home, but they have a lot of planning to do to help those individual cases.

“There will be a process for that,” she said.

The future home for the RHI affordable housing project. (Nicole Garn/980 CJME)

She said the space is more of a long-term facility.

“If people would like to live there longer, they can and if they have bigger goals and dreams that take them elsewhere, we help them get to that,” she said.

The organizers have plans for the current facility they’re operating out of.

“We hope to do some renovations and modernize it and really put the focus on children and youth as we do integrate housing services and youth employment programs over there,” she said.

The build is largely funded by the RHI project through the Government of Canada at $6.4 million.

However, some money has to be raised for additional services.

“The ground floor is a community hub and we look to use that to provide services not only to the residents of the building but also the greater community. So with that there’s a few pieces that in there that will cost a bit more than what RHI can provide so we would look to do a campaign of some sort to get some partners in and make that happen,” said Wenger.

She could not disclose that additional cost.

Maggie Redston-Davies manages the housing and outreach program at the North Central Housing Centre.

“We support people finding housing and do a lot of mediation with landlords, advocacy with Social Services, basically just helping support people to maintain and find housing,” she said.

Redston-Davies said this build will be a great addition to the North Central neighbourhood.

“The need is really great in this community and we’re really happy to be supporting the revitalization of the community and bringing housing where it’s needed,” she said.