Brandon affordable housing co-op gets $500K for long-sought repairs
'We won't have to look at increasing our rent by $100-plus a month': Eva Cameron
A Brandon housing co-op that has been pleading with the Manitoba government for funds to repair its aging infrastructure got a $500,000 response on Thursday.
"To the residents of Spruce Woods Housing Co-op, you have each other's back, and now your government is stepping up in a way to have your back," Housing, Addictions and Homelessness Minister Bernadette Smith said at a funding announcement.
The 40-year-old co-op complex on Braecrest Drive in the western Manitoba city offers housing to qualifying low-income families and seniors. It has 81 units and about 160 residents.
Manager Eva Cameron has been advocating for a couple of years for money from the province, saying without capital funding for expensive repairs, the co-op would have struggled to keep rents affordable.
"In April 2023, we started reaching out to all levels of government for help. At a time when everyone was talking about the need for affordable housing … we thought, how hard can it be to get the support that we needed? Well, we certainly heard the word no a lot."
At the time, the current NDP government was in Opposition and its MLAs were the only ones who would listen to Cameron's concerns, she said.
Since the NDP came to power in 2023, there have been more yeses, she said.
Last year, the province and co-op inked a new five-year deal to support the complex with operational costs of $14,000 each month.
The additional $500,000 will help ensure repair work gets done and rents stay affordable, Cameron said.
"We won't have to look at increasing our rent by $100-plus a month or even just give up on providing affordable housing altogether."
Some members of the co-op pay $300-$400 a month on rent, which amounts to 30 per cent of their total income, but that money doesn't go far when appliances need to be replaced or other maintenance done, Cameron said.
"By being able to provide affordable housing, it allows our seniors to live with dignity, it helps our families to be able to afford feeding their children, and in many cases, it has helped many families save enough money for the down payment on their very first home," she said.
"We're not only a co-op that provides affordable housing, we're a community — a community that helps each other. We look out for each other. We even drive out to Carberry to load a truck of potatoes to bring back for our members."
Natalie Karnatzki, who has a fixed income and has lived in the complex with her daughter for about two years, said without support for affordable housing, there are limited options for families like hers.
"Before here, I was living in a two-bedroom apartment above a beer vendor," she said. "It's a really bad area, because the, you know, the bar is there, everything's right there and definitely was a scary area."
Carl Partridge, who has lived in Spruce Woods for five years, is no longer able to work and relies on affordable and subsidized housing.
If rents go up, "I'd be out on the street, because for me right now [my income is] $800 a month," he said.
The funding still isn't enough to do all the work the co-op needs, which would cost $2.5 million, Cameron said.
Cameron, whom Brandon East MLA Glen Simard called a "tenacious, strong advocate," said she will continue to try to bend the ears of the other levels of government in her quest for more funding. The co-op also continues to fundraise what it can on its own.
In the meantime, Cameron intends to identify the most pressing needs at the complex and get them addressed "as quickly as we can."
Those include refurbishing 28 townhouses, installing energy-efficient windows and possibly moving the office so its current space can become another housing unit.
