Powering Past Reno-Viction: the Story of the Caroline Co-operative

Story provided by Partners for Affordable Housing

“You can’t tell if you are on the right path when you are standing still.”

This saying means, even if you are not sure where things are going, forge ahead. You might see something new around a corner, or you might meet another traveler and discover you are stronger together.

The strength of a collective journey is the story of the Caroline Co-operative.

One day, in a lovely old building on the corner of Caroline Street in Hamilton, Ontario, a resident was browsing the Realtor.ca website and, much to her surprise, learned that the building in which she sat was for sale.

“It was a shock to all of us, including the building caretaker of 40 years,” says Emily Power. She quickly mobilized her neighbours to form a tenant association. “We wanted to learn our rights and prepare for what might come. We knew that reno-victions were common after new owners buy a building. We had seniors and single moms in the building, and we wanted to have their backs.”

There were 21 affordable units in the building, at risk of being lost. The average rent was $1,000, some as low at $750. Typically, after a building goes into private hands, rents double.

“Everyone is worried about getting new affordable housing built and rightly so, but we are actually losing rental housing units faster than we can build,” says Claire Barcik, Executive Director of the Catherine Donnelly Foundation. For each social housing unit being built, 29 affordable units are being lost.

Emily’s tenant association decided to try to buy their $5 million building themselves. If they could secure the down payment, their collective rents would finance the mortgage. It was a long shot.

“Fundraising for the downpayment was hard,” Emily admitted. Canadian mortgage law requires a minimum of 20% down on purchases of this size – which meant raising more than a million dollars. “The pressure is real, and the odds are stacked against you.”

They were almost over the finish line, just weeks away from the closing date when a new twist surfaced. More than $100,000 in final costs including a major land transfer tax.

“We were so close,” Emily said, “But if we could not get the money to cover the closing costs, the whole project was in jeopardy.”

This is where “forge ahead” comes in, because you never know who you are going to meet. Emily had met Partners for Affordable Housing, who mentioned the project to the Catherine Donnelly Foundation, who shared it with the Fairmount Foundation and several others. Together, several donors covered the shortfall.

“It was not a hard decision,” says Heidi Henschel of the Fairmount Foundation. “To me it was such a great story of people taking control of their future. They were well on their way and just needed one-time support.”

For the tenants, it got them over the finish line.

A year later, Emily reports the Caroline Co-operative is going very well. “Sometimes people wonder if can we manage this on our own,” she says, “because we are just regular people. We have day jobs.”

The answer?

“Yes – and even better.” The new co-op members are addressing repair requests that had been ignored by the previous landlord — such as upgrading the laundry room, replacing water heaters, servicing radiators, upgrading the fuse boxes, smoke alarms and fire extinguishers, improving exterior door security, and are now looking at energy retrofits and improved accessibility. Conditions have improved quickly under co-op ownership.

Emily, Heidi and Claire all hope this project can serve as a model for keeping buildings in the hands of tenants.

This story was written by the Partners for Affordable Housing. An abridged version can be found here.

Partners for Affordable Housing is a coordinator, connector and convenor for catalyst for affordable housing projects whose mandate is to specifically bring philanthropy into the equation. Learn more about the organization here.