As 2023 draws to a close, we’re taking stock of everything we achieved this year. As always, CHRA members, sector partners, and sponsors played a key role in our accomplishments. Amid a mounting housing and affordability crisis, CHRA worked to lead and provoke system-wide action toward the right to housing for all. Read on to see what we did in 2023.

 

Policy, advocacy, and research

Economic Study: The Impact of Community Housing on Productivity. In November, in partnership with Housing Partnership Canada and other sector partners, we released our economic study, authored by Deloitte, which quantifies the connection between community housing and economic productivity. Among the report’s most striking findings is that bringing Canada’s community housing stock to the OECD average by 2030 would boost economic productivity by a staggering 5.7% to 9.3%.

Housing on the Hill 2023. In November, we hosted over 100 delegates, government representatives, and speakers as we came together at our largest Hill Day ever, to advocate for a “Team Canada” approach to solving the housing crisis. Thank you to everyone who attended and participated in making this event a success.

Parliamentary and Government submissions. With the input of members, we communicated regularly throughout the year with the federal government in the form of submissions, letters, meetings, and informal conversations. High-profile submissions from this year include:

• Our letter to Minister Freeland reiterating our urgent priorities for Budget 2023
• Our Recommendations to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities (HUMA) on the financialization of housing
• Our Recommendations to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance for Pre-Budget Consultations in Advance of the 2024 Budget

 

Sector partnerships

The National Indigenous Collaborative Housing Inc. (NICHI). The CHRA Indigenous Caucus helped facilitate the formation of NICHI, which is working to shape the landscape of urban, rural, and northern (URN) Indigenous housing across the country. We continue to work closely with NICHI to ensure that NICHI is recognized as the government’s long-term delivery partner for the $4 billion URN Indigenous housing commitment in the 2023 federal budget. NICHI has been established for less than a year, but it has already received funds from the federal government for distribution to URN Indigenous housing providers. Applications for this round of funding are open until January 12.

 

Professional Development and Education

The 2023 CHRA Congress. In Winnipeg this past April, CHRA held its first in-person Congress since 2019. The event was hugely successful, bringing over 500 community housing professionals together for four days of learning, networking, and planning for the future of the sector. We are looking forward to hosting the sector at the 2024 Congress in Fredericton.

 

 

CIH Canada Study Tour. In May, CIH Canada, which is administered by CHRA, held a study tour of New York City. Participants visited shelters, drop-in centres, affordable housing buildings, and more. Learn about some of the key takeaways from the tour on the CHRA blog. CIH Canada and CHRA are co-hosting a study tour of the UK in spring 2024, which has already sold out. CIH Canada also celebrated 30 graduates that successfully completed their qualifications in 2022.

Webinars and online training. Throughout the year, CHRA held a number of webinars and member consultations. We also held a hugely popular online conflict management training session. Keep an eye on our webinars page for more learning opportunities in 2024.

 

CHRA news

CHRA’s 2023-2027 Strategic Plan. In April, we released our four-year Strategic Plan, which articulates CHRA’s goals in working towards our vision of a thriving housing system in Canada. Out of this came our new mission statement: We lead and provoke system-wide action toward the right to housing for all by:

• serving as the national voice of the community housing sector; and
• creating the conditions for community housing providers to achieve their goals.

CHRA is growing! CHRA’s small but mighty team added a new position in April – Program and Membership Coordinator (Chloe Martin) – to help us make our events, programs, and membership processes run more smoothly. This fall, following the departure of Mary Clarke as the General Manager of CIH Canada, we recruited for a more general position – Senior Manager of Education (Mel Willerth) – who will oversee both CIH Canada and CHRA’s educational programs. Stay tuned for more news about CHRA’s growing team in 2024.

We modernized our membership program and systems. One of the goals defined in our strategic plan is to 'grow our membership base to strengthen our voice on national housing issues and sustain CHRA from a financial standpoint'.

To meet these goals, we made two big changes for 2024. We've:

• updated our membership categories and fees to make them more transparent, and
• moved to a new membership system database that will improve the renewal process and allow us to communicate members-only programs and offerings more effectively.

 

We’d like to thank our members, sector partners, and sponsors for collaborating with and supporting CHRA in 2023. Stay tuned to our communications channels including our Flash newsletter, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn profiles, and the CHRA blog to stay up to date on what we’re working on in 2024.