5 Questions with: YWCA Banff’s Rae Roberts on Housing
Our Series on Affordability and Housing in the Bow Valley
As part of a series looking at housing and affordability in the Bow Valley, we have spoken with community activist Cindy Chiperzak as well as Canmore Community Housing’s Rob Murray.
Now, we’re connecting with Banff YWCA’s Director of Residential Projects Rae Roberts. With a background in advocacy work and a degree in women’s studies, Roberts is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the YWCA Social Enterprise, the Affordable Housing Programs and the overall facility. She is passionate about supporting Bow Valley people and continuously works to improve access to housing solutions and supportive programming.
2. What’s Next For The Program?
The Banff YWCA has a broad slate of housing programs and has been the leading provider of managed, affordable housing in Banff for more than 25 years. Roberts says the Y’s work comes from the following core values:
- View housing as a human right
- Ensure that all folks in our housing program are paying less than 30% of their income to rent in line with defined affordability criteria
- Use a set of guiding principles and pathway finding tools to ensure we are delivering our housing program in line with our values and can prioritize those with the greatest need.
- Recognize the unique housing landscape of the bow valley and the need to advocate and share our community’s housing story broadly
- Understand that there is a gendered experience to the housing crisis, so we provide units dedicated to women and gender diverse people
YWCA Banff is addressing the housing affordability gap by offering perpetual affordable housing on site with 113 units that can serve upwards of 165 local people."
~ Rae-Ann Roberts
Banff YWCA’s Rae-Ann Roberts
1. How is Banff YWCA working to address the housing affordability gap in the Bow Valley? What’s Banff YWCA’s unique approach?
YWCA Banff is addressing the housing affordability gap by offering perpetual affordable housing on site with 113 units that can serve upwards of 165 local people. We offer a mix of shared housing and self-contained units, as well as emergency and transitional housing options across our housing continuum. Our organization has made a deliberate commitment to addressing the gaps in rental housing that exist in the current market.
YWCA Banff works from a place of housing retention. We have affordable housing options with supports, which means we have programming in place to respond to unique needs and offer a client-centered response to support local people to remain in their housing.
2. How does Banff YWCA currently collaborate and partner with the municipality, housing agencies, the housing industry, the business community, and other orders of government to carries out its vision, mission and mandate?
YWCA Banff recognizes that our organization is part of a social wellness ecosystem and that achieving our vision and mission requires a high degree of collaboration. We understand there is no one quick solution. Working collaboratively at all levels of Government and engaging with dedicated local stakeholders is critical for change. Our recent project: Dr. Priscilla Wilson’s Place, is a prime example of our ability to bring multiple levels of government together (municipal, provincial and federal) to realize affordable housing in our community. This innovative project utilized modular shipping container construction with a fully self-sustaining net zero energy system and delivers some of the highest quality of affordable housing in the local market.
YWCA Banff continues to advocate for rural housing and homelessness and ensures it’s on people’s radar. Our community is unique and so is our housing situation. We work collaboratively and in interconnected ways with other local housing providers through referrals, interagency committees and working groups, and by pushing for YWCA representation in all conversations around housing and service provision. Our community has many dedicated service providers who continue to find ways to address unique local need and we’re very grateful to our many local partners, donors and volunteers who support the delivery of our work.
3. What could big picture success in the housing affordability crisis look like? How will we know we’ve turned a corner? How do we measure success?
We will know we’ve achieved success when all local people have access to safe, suitable, affordable housing solutions. When over-crowding is no longer normalized or seen as an expectation. When local people are no longer paying more than 30% of their take-home pay on shelter. When families and pets are accommodated adequately and families aren’t required to leave the Bow Valley due to rising costs, particularly in housing. We will have started to turn the corner when we are sitting at a minimum vacancy rate of 3% and this vacancy rate is made up of various suitable housing options that meet the greatest need.
Our team at YWCA Banff understands that improving housing affordability is not the singular solution to the very complex issues of affordability in our resort-based community, however we do know that access to safe, suitable housing is a critical starting point for individual and family health and resiliency. Banff residents earning less than $40,000 per year make up the greatest % of income earners in community. Wage increases in the local sector(s) are far outpaced by annual inflation. The market pressures on the limited availability of housing in Banff has been a significant barrier to build or retrofit suitable and affordable housing.
The 2012 Town of Banff Housing Study outlines several initiatives that would help to address the housing crisis in our community including regulatory incentives, and enforcement. Opportunities to re-zone underutilized properties to increase healthy densification have been explored and are on the radar. The ability to provide Co-op housing and community based, cost-sharing models are some additional examples where accessibility could be increased in the housing sector. Big picture success would be to formalize a recurring Housing Study that offers housing providers and local people the most up to date research on the local housing landscape. YWCA Banff colleagues are currently supporting a 2023 point in time count (PIT) with local stakeholders and service providers. This important data collection tool could compliment other formalized research initiatives. This translates to a clear need to fund evaluations work and data collection in our community, as well as systems mapping work in order to create solutions that fit our unique rural landscape.
The 2012 Town of Banff Housing Study outlines several initiatives that would help to address the housing crisis in our community including regulatory incentives, and enforcement. Opportunities to re-zone underutilized properties to increase healthy densification have been explored and are on the radar."
~ Rae-Ann Roberts
4. We know land is very expensive. What are other systems-level obstacles that are holding things back? What needs to shift from a systems perspective to generate different outcomes?
Of course, we need more inventory- but not just more units, we need designated affordable units built. We need social impact investments to support non-profit organizations doing this work. The costs of construction have not returned to pre-pandemic levels and the cost per square foot is pricing out the affordability build options. In addition to measurable tax breaks, reductions in costs of permits, more forgivable loans, dollars offered for building occupancy costs, and sustainability investments for organizations demonstrating affordable housing deliverables, are key.
At a systems-level, we require a multi-pronged approach that can increase densification of appropriate inventory including regulatory relaxations, examining enforced parking requirements, or retrofit incentives, as examples. Cooperation between Parks Canada and land transfer opportunities to the Municipality or additionally, to non-profit housing organizations like the YWCA Banff, will ensure that new units will be brought to market and be perpetually affordable.
5. Despite the incredibly challenging context, progress is being made. What are you most proud of?
YWCA Banff has been the leading provider of affordable housing in Banff since 1987. Our commitment to maintaining affordability and the quality of our inventory has taken a great deal of resources, without question, financial and human resources, to continuously meet our goal of delivering housing programming for the most vulnerable in our community. We cannot understate the investments that our organization has put into our housing program to meet the highest percentage affordability threshold, year after year, regardless of landscape challenges, including through the Pandemic. This intentional investment in our affordable housing programming is a real point of pride.
Additionally, we are proud to work from a place of housing retention and recognition of the unique experiences of individuals accessing our spaces. We are particularly proud of our flexible housing program model and our ability to work through a client-centered lens to respond to real time needs locally. Our focus in building a sense of community and sense of belonging for local people coupled with services like our 24-hour crisis line, supportive counselling, information and referrals, and our mixed make-up of housing inventory help us to serve individuals and families with meaningful impact. We believe that our efforts to strive to be innovative and responsive to our community needs is one of our strongest attributes as an organization. Dr. Priscilla Wilson’s Place is the result of the driven focus of our entire team at the YWCA Banff. We have delivered 33 units of the most affordable, suitable, and sustainable housing that our community has, and it is the envy of many housing providers across the country. This is a reimagining of what social and/or affordable housing can look like in our beautiful town and beyond.
