How these K-W churches are creating housing

K-W churches creating housing CTV’s Jeff Pickel checks in with three local projects for an update on their efforts.

In a housing crisis, help can come from unexpected places.

Last year, CTV News brought you the stories of four Kitchener-Waterloo churches who were stepping up to collectively create more than 150 housing units – many of them affordable.

Today we checked back in with three of them.

ST. MARK'S AND ST. PETER’S IN KITCHENER

Years in the making, work to transform a former Kitchener church into 43 affordable housing units is now nearly complete.

"Mark’s Place," housed in what once was St. Mark's Lutheran Church, is hoping to welcome residents next month.

The project is being led by Indwell.

“Supportive, affordable housing means that we provide a permanent apartment at approximately $550 a month rent, alongside onsite health supports and services,” explained Mark Willcock with Indwell.

The goal is to keep people off the streets.

“Our tenants primarily will come from homelessness or [people who] have been precariously housed,” Willcock said.

“The wraparound onsite health supports and services really help people to stay housed in the long term so they don't end up back on the street again.”

Indwell has a similar project at St. Peter's Lutheran Church in downtown Kitchener. In that case, the church will remain but will make room for more than 40 supportive housing units.

Indwell said they're targeting early 2024 to complete that project.

“We believe, at Indwell, that supportive housing is the key to ending homelessness,” Willcock said.

ALL SAINTS’ ANGLICAN CHURCH IN WATERLOO

In Waterloo, All Saints’ Anglican Church is using a different method to create housing.

Sitting on three acres of land, with a building that no longer fit their needs, the church sold two acres to a developer who is creating 70 stacked condo units to be sold at a market rate.

The church is using the money from the sale to create a new community centre, which they say will act as a focal point for the community.

“There was just this massive hole up here in north Waterloo,” head pastor Marty Levesque said. “It needs a community center. It needs a place where people can come and gather and be together as friends, families, neighbors, and just as community.”

Levesque says while the church and community centre were their primary focus, the type of housing is also important.

“The density is the value,” he said. “Having over 70 units come in, on what if you were to just do single-family dwellings would be like eight or 10 [homes]… this way you create that density.”