Mixed-Market Housing Offers More Options in a Unique Market

A modern, 6-storey building featuring affordable housing for persons with disabilities and a café is coming to Whitehorse. Cornerstone will be a mixed-market, mixed-use building that will fill an important community gap. The market units and café will help offset operating costs and shorten the mortgage, making the project financially sustainable.

Project scope and expected outcomes

Home to 32,000 people, Whitehorse has a far smaller housing market than Vancouver or Toronto — but it faces substantial pressure all the same. Employment rates are high in the area, but so is housing demand, and prices in Whitehorse have been rising for years.

This leaves little room for those who cannot afford market housing — including many people with disabilities. Whether or not they are employed, apartment rents are expensive, running about $1,250 to $1,500 per month for single bedrooms as of mid-2021. Accessible units are a slimmer part of that market.

“The lack of affordable housing is having a significant effect on our clients’ ability just to go to work, and what is available in Whitehorse isn’t very respectable,” says Jillian Hardie, Executive Director/CEO of Challenge Disability Resource Group. The organization assists people with disabilities in becoming active and independent in their community, by learning real job skills and entering the job market. But that road to independence can be hampered by a lack of safe and affordable housing.

Building (literally) on a social enterprise

Challenge Disability Resource Group started to look for new ways to alleviate the situation back in 2010. The organization was unable to generate much local interest at the time. CMHC provided Seed Funding that allowed Challenge to do some concept design, drawing on previous feasibility studies that looked into what its clients needed.

The project went through several reinventions during this time. “With our architect, kobayashi+zedda, we looked at many options that would work for people with disabilities and people who are hard to house,” says Jillian. “Eventually we arrived at an inclusive, multipurpose structure, providing food for tenants if they chose, along with the Bridges Café and Catering.”

The café would be one of the project’s core ideas. Challenge already runs Bridges Catering, which would be expanded to include the café in the building and offer meals to tenants at cost. Its offering to the public would also help to make the whole project financially viable. Challenge already had a long experience in social enterprise, with its success in running Career Industries, which makes core boxes for Yukon’s mining industry.

Getting buy-in from government and the community

Much more had to happen before the concept could be realized as a brick-and-mortar building, however. The government and the public were interested, says Jillian, but “getting someone to say they’re going to put their money in first was a challenge.”

The City of Whitehorse came through first, with $1 million, followed by $7.6 million from the Government of Yukon. CMHC also financed the project, with a $9.081-million forgivable loan and a $5.1-million, low-cost repayable loan. These amounts came through the National Housing Co-Investment Fund. The Fund finances new and revitalizes, high-performing affordable housing located close to necessary supports and amenities, from public transit and jobs to daycares, schools and healthcare. Jillian says that having territorial support went a long way in securing federal funding, because the project already “ticked all the right boxes.”

The project also ticked boxes with donors who saw value in the Cornerstone development.

• The Whitehorse-based firm kobayashi+zedda architects had been involved since the conceptual phase of the project. They contributed large amounts of time and energy at no charge. “Tony Zedda has a real spirit of philanthropy,” says Jillian. “The firm worked with us every step of the way, and we used their concept and design for the building.” For his part, Tony Zedda says that “we were motivated by the desire to help a not-for-profit bring much needed affordable and accessible housing to downtown Whitehorse. We felt that we had the skills to help Jillian and Challenge navigate the waters to a successfully funded and supportable community housing project.”
• Local Ford dealer Whitehorse Motors donated about $5,000, which Cornerstone is using to buy equipment for Bridges Café. As Whitehorse Motors President Tina Woodland explains, the idea had support from their customer base: “Last year was our 50th anniversary, and we gave away $50,000 to 10 organizations: $5,000 each month. We had a list of local organizations that customers could choose to support when buying a vehicle. It was a pretty overwhelming response, and the Challenge project was the winner for the month of March.”
• Cornerstone also received a donation of about $3,000 from the Calgary-based Nickle Family Foundation, also for equipment.

From concept to building — and angling for a little more

Construction began in April 2020 and is expected to continue until the summer of 2021. The 6-storey building will serve several purposes:

• The upper floors will have 46 units of affordable housing. These 1-bedroom, 450- to 675-square feet “micro-units,” are all self-contained, with a kitchen and washroom. 9 of the units are barrier-free, and 21 are allocated to Challenge clients. Some of the remaining units are also designated: 3 to Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Society Yukon clients, 5 to Blood Ties Four Directions Centre clients, and 1 for rapid rehousing. Yukon Housing Corporation provided $150,000 for 2 of the units, dedicated to survivors of violence.
• The penthouse will feature 8 one- to 2-bedroom condominiums, which are at market rate, along with a rooftop garden accessible to all residents.
• A medical room will offer services to Challenge clients and others in need. Nursing and medical support is still being planned with First Nations and the Yukon government.
• The ground-floor Bridges Café will be open to the public. The ground floor will also feature a retail space for lease, and a lounge area for people to gather or even hold workshops. The door between this space and the café is moveable, to allow flexible arrangements for services, says Jillian. “So, if a First Nation wants to offer cooking courses to the public, we let them use the area for free.”
• The second floor will include the Challenge offices, a training room, and four leasable offices for use by other service providers, clinicians and non-governmental organizations.
• The basements will have storage lockers, a mechanical room, and a worm room, which will support Challenge’s vermiculture activity. “We have a café and promote recycling, so we use leftover peels and cores to feed the worms,” says Jillian. “The worms make fertilizer, and we can sell the worms.” Local anglers and farmers need to buy worms because they don’t easily survive Yukon’s cold climate.

All of this will come wrapped in an attractive yet quirky modern package in Whitehorse’s downtown core. In addition to the 9 barrier-free units, the common spaces and the café will be accessible, and the restrooms in the common area will be gender-neutral. In a city where most buildings are only a few storeys high, Cornerstone will boast some of the best views from its rooftop garden. Tenants on social assistance will pay $950 per month in rent. The penthouse condominium units all sold well in advance — helping to offset project costs and reduce the organization’s long-term mortgage commitments.

Looking ahead

Challenge expects the project to be financially sustainable, projecting annual revenues of about $1 million from residential and lease income. This, along with the Bridges Café and vermiculture income, should meet the expected monthly operating costs of about $20,000. Challenge owns the land, and has a 40-year mortgage — but hopes to pay it off sooner.

Meanwhile, the building acts as an interface between people with disabilities and the rest of the community. According to Tony, “We strived to make this a multi-use building by including both affordable rental and market (for sale) housing, retail space and commercial offices. As it occupies a prominent corner in downtown Whitehorse, we wanted the building to represent the broader community and not labelled as solely a ‘social housing’ project.”

Jillian concurs. “Everyone’s aware of what the building is about and what we want to achieve, and they want to be part of that. Challenge is responsible for the mortgage and the upkeep here, but what we really want is for this to be a community.” No doubt, this community will grow as people visit the café, workshops and classes.