As Canada is a large country with scattered areas of
concentrated population, the initial moves towards co-operative housing that
began in the 1930s and 1940s were started in different areas by different groups
with differing visions. Many of the housing movements were supported by churches
and other organizations. One of the problems that housing groups ran into was
the inflexibility of the bank mortgage system which was not set up to deal with
collective ownership of properties. The early days of Canadian housing co-ops
proceeded in a piecemeal fashion, creating work-arounds to deal with the
contemporary bank mortgage system.
By 1968 the Canadian Housing Foundation was set up and the
government was interested in co-operative housing as a means of providing
housing for low-income families. With this support, new co-operative housing
projects increased exponentially between 1973 and 1978. Most of these projects
were townhouse and apartment complexes with the majority of them being new
construction. Co-operative housing development was still going strong in the
1980s when we got into the game.
Sources
Cole, Leslie. Under
Construction: A History of Co-operative Housing in Canada, Borealis Press,
Ottawa, Ontario, 2008.
