Federal government funding $29 million for Currie Barracks affordable housing project

Ten townhomes and 62 apartments are being built in the southwest community

A mixed-income housing project on federal land will be injected with $29 million from Ottawa to deliver 72 affordable units to Calgarians. The initiative, whose construction began last year at Currie Barracks, is being led by the non-profit Onward and is slated for completion by Christmas. “It brings together developers, non-profits, and government partners to build the affordable rental housing that is missing in far too many big cities across Canada,” said Julie Dabrusin, Minister of Environment, Climate Change and Nature, in a news conference on Thursday.

Onward’s CEO, Martina Jileckova, said 10 of the 72 units would be townhomes, and the rest would be apartments. Jileckova said the project will prioritize women, children and seniors. She did not give an exact distribution of rents across the project, but said most of the units would be offered at between 60 and 70 per cent below the market rate.

Some units will be rented at 20 or 10 per cent of the market rate. “But those are a small portion of the project relative to the deeply affordable rents that we will provide,” Jileckova said. The project was also made possible by the City of Calgary, which waived building permit and development permit fees and expedited the approval of the initiative.

The housing projects “are taking advantage of both granting opportunities as well as accelerating department timelines,” Reid Henry, the city’s chief housing officer said. Henry said the latest project helps the city toward its goal of creating 3,000 non-marking units every year, under its “Home is Here” strategy. Last year, it created 1,800 such units.

“So we are still short of our... affordable housing annual goal,” he said. “But we are ramping up towards that target, and great projects like this help us get there. The Home is Here strategy is currently under review and being refreshed to look at ways we can continue to do things differently and innovate to hit that 3,000 non-market a year goal.”