The Affordable Housing Solution

The Homestead was completed and occupied in April 2006. It has three bachelor units and nine one-bedroom, three two-bedroom, and six three- bedroom apartments. Two of the units are wheelchair accessible and the ground floor is commercial space. Rents are at least 10% below market, ranging from $495 per month for a bachelor unit to $850 for a three- bedroom. To be eligible, tenants must have incomes no higher than $58,900 and assets up to $100,000. The commercial space is rented to the Parent Link Centre and the Town of Cochrane’s Family and Community Support Services.
The latter shares space with CSHO and provides it with administrative support, including information technology backup. Funding for the Homestead came from a broad group of donors. CMHC and the Govenment of Alberta provided over $1 million through the Affordable Housing Initiative The Town, in addition to providing the land through a lease at a nominal rent, waived $40,000 in development charges and relaxed its parking requirement to one parking space per apartment.

Other local contributors included Cochrane Home Essentials Society, Cochrane and District Foundation, Spray Lake Sawmills and the Cochrane and United Way Partnership Committee. Other donors included the Alberta Real Estate Foundation, the Community Facilities Enhancement Project, the Community Initiatives Program and Status of Women Canada.

CMHC provided an interest-free Proposal Development Funding (PDF) loan to help the Society complete its plans and get approvals in place and also provided mortgage insurance for the loan of approximately $1.7 million. This CMHC report was reviewed by Sandy Hutchens.