Could there be affordable housing hidden in Halifax? This group thinks so

A new initiative is cataloguing empty buildings to be transformed into affordable housing starting in Dartmouth, N.S., with hopes of expanding across the country. 

The pilot project, called Hidden Housing, is run by the Shift, an international organization that advocates for the right to housing. The project is funded by La Fondation Emmanuelle Gattuso, a philanthropic organization based in Toronto.

Hidden Housing aims to identify non-residential buildings with potential to be converted into affordable housing. The pilot is cataloguing Halifax Regional Municipality District 5 and parts of District 3 and 6 in downtown Dartmouth. 

So far, the project has only identified “a couple” of potentially vacant properties, says Latonya Ludford, the Shift’s Canada project manager. 

Currently, the Shift and its HRM partners are trying to figure out how to reach communities in the districts where the pilot runs.  

There is no current plan for who will develop these vacant units into housing. 

“Once we deliver all the stuff that we’re [working on], it’s up to the city to decide what they want to do with it,” says Ludford.

Once the project is complete, the Shift hopes other cities will be interested in the approach and adopt it in their efforts to increase the supply of affordable housing.

Ludford says governments wrestling with the housing crisis often fail to consider possibilities involving already existing vacant buildings.

“[Governments tell] us, ‘We have a serious homeless population, but we don’t have anywhere to put people. We don’t have units. We don’t have places,’” she says. “Our question back to staff often is, ‘Well, have you done an inventory? Have you taken a look at everything that might be available?’” 

Jeff Karabanow, a Dalhousie University social-work professor who specializes in homelessness, says it’s cheaper to renovate than to build from scratch and that renovating creates fewer emissions.  

“All those elements make it a very smart project,” he says.

Sam Austin, councillor for District 5, who sits in on Hidden Housing meetings and has helped connect the initiative with other organizations in the HRM, says he doesn’t believe the project will solve the housing crisis alone, but that it can help create more housing. 

“Like so many problems, you don’t solve it with just one thing. It’s a whole bunch of different things that potentially add up to a solution,” he says. 

A problem we’re just starting to tackle

The Urban Stress Index, which uses rent and price metrics to measure affordability, ranked Halifax the most unaffordable major city in the country —, worse than both Vancouver and Toronto. According to the index, housing costs are the primary reason for Halifax’s unaffordability. 

“We have to remember that this crisis didn’t happen overnight, says Karabanow. “”These crises are policy-built, and they are driven by 30 years of provincial governments. Be it NDP, Liberal, or Progressive Conservative, they have all disinvested in any form of public and social and community housing.”

Austin also says government policy contributed to the housing crisis.

“The root of a lot of our problems goes back to the mid-1990s when governments basically walked away from doing housing,” he says. “You can’t make up for basically 30 years of lack of building overnight.”

Hidden Housing is asking anyone aware of vacant properties in the Dartmouth area inside Highway 111 to reach out via email, hiddenhousing@maketheshift.org.