This Affordable Housing Course brings together tools and resources from across Canada that apply to anyone interested in the affordable housing development process.
Each module is filled with interactive learning tools and can be completed at your own pace. The Affordable Housing Course will guide you through the following development phases:
Length: Asynchronous and Self-Paced. 6 hours.
This online course will enhance your understanding of The Affordable housing development from start to finish through encouraging collaborative discussions with your cohort, and enhanced through Q & A sessions with SHI team members. You will gain an understanding of the affordable housing development process while building meaningful relationships with sector members from across Canada
Discover the key concepts and themes covered in the affordable housing course while exploring the work of the Sustainable Housing Initiative
Discover how your idea for an affordable housing project can be imagined to reflect community needs through these modules:
Engage with the pre-development factors that can shape the design and purpose of your affordable housing project through these modules:
Understand and navigate the steps required for a shovel ready project through these modules:
Discover how to close-out the final phase of your project’s development and ensure its long term sustainability through proactive management practices in these modules:
Explore the growing role of impact investment in affordable housing developments across Canada
Incorporate key learnings of the course and its resources into your day-to-day work in Canada’s housing sector
The Shelter Pulse Database Project enabled rural and remote shelters to work together in providing trauma-informed policies and procedures for violence against women shelters in Canada. The experts from the field that gathered to share their knowledge to the Shelter Pulse Database make this new tool invaluable. Under the leadership of the Rural Development Network, many partner shelters contributed to the outcome.
Cindy Easton – Mountain Rose Women’s Shelter Association (MRWSA)
As a previous participant in the Enabling Housing Choice project with RDN, we are excited to be making progress on key recommendations outlined in RDN’s report – Attracting Diverse Housing Development in Mayerthorpe. This report has been critical to understanding our community’s diverse housing needs, and has equipped us with community-informed insights on how to address these needs.
Karen St. Martin – Town of Mayerthorpe
Enabling Housing Choice, Housing
Understanding the significance of having people with lived experience and Indigenous people being at the tables of all conversations – especially those with decision making authority. The value of community, and looking after ourselves so we can serve others. That there is a community of people who I can learn from and share with in my work to serve my community.
Training Participant
National Coordinated Access
This training was so invigorating, refreshing and very much needed. The intimate setting, I feel, made a huge difference. We left the event with a deeper understanding and a strengthened network. We were reminded to focus on the capacity that we have, not necessarily all we would love to be able to do, and take it in steps. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Coordinated Access Training Participant
National Coordinated Access
Creating a sense of home is so much more than just a building and the Innovation Fund gave SHI and the YWCA creative space to think differently about our approach to design. Living in Banff National Park also strongly influenced our commitment to net zero targets. Belonging, security, connection, affordability, community pride-these are all factors that have influenced how we developed the Courtyard project.
Connie MacDonald- Chief Executive Officer, YWCA Banff
Housing
We are forever grateful to work together on this insight for our project. If not for the support from RDN on this we would not be where we are today! Our dream was to attain transitional, affordable and market housing in our community. This turned into a goal and now a reality. This housing continuum of care will be able to meet people’s needs while recognizing what their housing realities mean in a rural perspective. RDN has walked along with us and been able to connect and answer many questions, concerns and thoughts during this time.
Rebecca Wells – Executive Director, Wellspring Family Resource Center
Housing
We brainstormed and some said nature and multiculturalism because we are a multicultural building, with people from many different countries and ethnicities here. So we wanted something to represent that, and the mural will make us a landmark in the community as there i s alot of foot-traffic in the community.
St. Joachim Tenant on the Community Mural
Placemaking for Inclusion
There were people there who don’t normally show up to different functions. Everybody was doing something somewhere and were happy to participate and help others
St. Joachim Tenant on the Mural-Painting Event
Placemaking for Inclusion
The atmosphere was quite welcoming for everyone. One person said they had been here for 20 years and this was the best event they had seen. The busyness of the room encouraged cliques to break up and this increase mingling
St. Joachim Tenant on the Mural-Painting Event
Placemaking for Inclusion
It really brought the community together. Overall it was a great success. We also really enjoyed the painting, it was a great opportunity for those who had never painted before.
Senior Tenant, La Société des Manoirs Saint-Joachim
Placemaking for Inclusion
August 27, 2024
Homelessness
The Rural, Remote and Indigenous Communities’ Responses to Homelessness in Alberta What We Heard Report was published in May 2024 and funded by Homeward Trust Edmonton and the Government of Canada’s Reaching Home: Canada’s Homelessness Strategy.
ViewAugust 26, 2024
Homelessness, National Coordinated Access
The development of the training materials and toolkit builds upon the Housing First philosophy while using a place-based approach along with a person-centred and trauma-informed care lens based on Reconciliation. The was based on a bottom-up, rather than a top-down approach to understanding Coordinated Access through the voices of those with lived experience and the […]
ViewFirst Nations Data Collection, Homelessness, Housing, Indigenous
April 1, 2024
First Nations Data Collection, Homelessness, Indigenous
The purpose of this storytelling tool is to help us take steps to improve the quality of life, housing, and basic needs within our community. Click the buttons below to download/view the resources.
ViewApril 1, 2024
Homelessness
Coming Soon!
ViewJanuary 1, 2023
Alberta Provincial Estimations, Homelessness
October 1, 2022
Alberta Provincial Estimations, Estimating Rural Homelessness, Homelessness
This step-by-step document has been developed by the Rural Development Network (RDN) for rural communities across Canada that wish to accurately estimate the number of homeless individuals in their community. Click the button below to view the resource as a PDF.
ViewJune 1, 2021
Homelessness
Often, rural and remote communities do not have emergency shelters or supportive/ transitional housing for people experiencing homelessness. In addition, communities may be limited in the resources, staff capacity, trained volunteers, as well as the time needed to implement longer-term responses to homelessness, such as housing or shelter solutions, particularly prior to the onset of […]
ViewOur Sustainable Housing Initiative (SHI) is your partner in overcoming barriers to affordable housing development. Our dedicated team is committed to guiding your organization through every stage of the process. From defining the need, creating a strategy, to accessing funding, we provide the support and expertise needed to help make affordable housing a reality in your community.
To help identify housing needs in your community, which helps with planning & accessing funding.
Co-creating an informed strategy for housing in your community.
To confirm financial viability of a housing project based on costs, revenue, and market factors.
To champion the proposed housing development by encompassing the needs assessment, financial analysis, research, and organizational information in one proposal.
We write funding applications and help identify funding sources to implement housing projects.
To add community perspectives to the conversation, provide information, and create buy-in.
Providing guidance to support the development of diverse, sustainable, and relevant housing in their communities.
The Shelter Pulse Database Project enabled rural and remote shelters to work together in providing trauma-informed policies and procedures for violence against women shelters in Canada. The experts from the field that gathered to share their knowledge to the Shelter Pulse Database make this new tool invaluable. Under the leadership of the Rural Development Network, many partner shelters contributed to the outcome.
Cindy Easton – Mountain Rose Women’s Shelter Association (MRWSA)
As a previous participant in the Enabling Housing Choice project with RDN, we are excited to be making progress on key recommendations outlined in RDN’s report – Attracting Diverse Housing Development in Mayerthorpe. This report has been critical to understanding our community’s diverse housing needs, and has equipped us with community-informed insights on how to address these needs.
Karen St. Martin – Town of Mayerthorpe
Enabling Housing Choice, Housing
Understanding the significance of having people with lived experience and Indigenous people being at the tables of all conversations – especially those with decision making authority. The value of community, and looking after ourselves so we can serve others. That there is a community of people who I can learn from and share with in my work to serve my community.
Training Participant
National Coordinated Access
This training was so invigorating, refreshing and very much needed. The intimate setting, I feel, made a huge difference. We left the event with a deeper understanding and a strengthened network. We were reminded to focus on the capacity that we have, not necessarily all we would love to be able to do, and take it in steps. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Coordinated Access Training Participant
National Coordinated Access
Creating a sense of home is so much more than just a building and the Innovation Fund gave SHI and the YWCA creative space to think differently about our approach to design. Living in Banff National Park also strongly influenced our commitment to net zero targets. Belonging, security, connection, affordability, community pride-these are all factors that have influenced how we developed the Courtyard project.
Connie MacDonald- Chief Executive Officer, YWCA Banff
Housing
We are forever grateful to work together on this insight for our project. If not for the support from RDN on this we would not be where we are today! Our dream was to attain transitional, affordable and market housing in our community. This turned into a goal and now a reality. This housing continuum of care will be able to meet people’s needs while recognizing what their housing realities mean in a rural perspective. RDN has walked along with us and been able to connect and answer many questions, concerns and thoughts during this time.
Rebecca Wells – Executive Director, Wellspring Family Resource Center
Housing
We brainstormed and some said nature and multiculturalism because we are a multicultural building, with people from many different countries and ethnicities here. So we wanted something to represent that, and the mural will make us a landmark in the community as there i s alot of foot-traffic in the community.
St. Joachim Tenant on the Community Mural
Placemaking for Inclusion
There were people there who don’t normally show up to different functions. Everybody was doing something somewhere and were happy to participate and help others
St. Joachim Tenant on the Mural-Painting Event
Placemaking for Inclusion
The atmosphere was quite welcoming for everyone. One person said they had been here for 20 years and this was the best event they had seen. The busyness of the room encouraged cliques to break up and this increase mingling
St. Joachim Tenant on the Mural-Painting Event
Placemaking for Inclusion
It really brought the community together. Overall it was a great success. We also really enjoyed the painting, it was a great opportunity for those who had never painted before.
Senior Tenant, La Société des Manoirs Saint-Joachim
Placemaking for Inclusion
April 1, 2024
Affordable Housing, Housing, Housing Education to Support Ukrainian Evacuees in Alberta, Rural Immigration
Click the buttons below to download/view the following resources in PDF format.
ViewFebruary 1, 2024
Affordable Housing, Inclusive Communities, Placemaking for Inclusion
A resource for affordable housing providers and tenants seeking to foster greater social inclusion in their community. Click the button to view the resource as a PDF file.
ViewNovember 1, 2022
Affordable Housing, Enabling Housing Choice
The purpose of the Step-By-Step Guide to Developing Affordable Housing is to be a resource for individuals and groups who want to develop, build, and operate affordable rental housing. The 2nd Edition of the Guide was developed with support from the Government of Canada’s Homelessness Partnering Strategy and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), […]
ViewApril 1, 2022
Affordable Housing, Enabling Housing Choice, Housing
Research for driving transformational, long-term policy change that encourages housing choice and diversity in communities. Click the buttons below to view more.
ViewJanuary 1, 2021
Affordable Housing
A guide to the development and operation of sustainable, efficient, and resilient housing co-ops in Alberta. Click below to view each resource.
ViewMarch 1, 2020
Affordable Housing
Evidence-based building design recommendations to improve your tenants’ quality of life. Click below to view/download the resource in PDF format.
View
11443-143 Street,
NW Edmonton,
Alberta T5M 1V7
