Rapid Housing

If Canada is going to ramp up construction to solve the affordable housing crisis, it will need enough skilled workers to do so. Since 2015, the YWCA Trade Journey program in Saskatoon has been training women to work in construction through a 16-week program where participants explore a sample of trades, receive fitness training to increase strength, and build their workplace confidence. The program also provides personal protective equipment, helps participants get all necessary safety tickets, and places them as a site labourer at the end of the program. 

Alberta needs 43,800 community housing units by 2030. That’s only six years from now, and is a 47% increase in community housing. Taking a Housing First approach can help avoid needless deaths, save taxpayers money, and improve people's health — and modular construction is a solution to provide more housing faster. But it also needs to be done at scale, which starts with sourcing the right land in the pre-development stage.

National Indigenous Collaborative Housing Inc. (NICHI) was created in 2022 to help address the pressing issues of housing adequacy and security — to maintain and create housing and to enforce it as a human right for Indigenous people living in urban, rural, and northern communities across Canada. Many of these communities are facing a severe lack of affordable and safe housing, which is only furthered by buildings with infestations, poor water, and in unsafe locations. NICHI aims to help those experiencing housing insecurity, whether it be homelessness, precariously housed, or at risk of violent situations.

For many First Nations peoples, a safe and affordable home has been strategically kept out of reach – they were not allowed off the reserve for a time period, not allowed to own a house on the reserve, and unable to build equity as generations of non-Indigenous people have done, and Architect David Fortin says a project like the Silver Sage Housing Corporation Horse Dance Lodge is a step in the right direction to start addressing these types of inequalities.

Silver Sage Housing Corporation (Silver Sage) hosted a partnership gathering to celebrate the end of construction for Regina’s first Rapid Housing Initiative project, a new 29-unit permanent supportive housing facility for individuals and families experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity in Regina. The project broke ground in September of last year, with Big Block Construction overseeing the design-build stage of the development.

YWCA Saskatoon has announced an exciting expansion of its Crisis Shelter & Residence, with the organization embarking on a transformative journey to address the urgent need for safe and supportive housing in the community. The expansion project involves the construction of a new 35-unit transitional housing development, aimed at providing affordable residential units and support programming to women and their children who are fleeing traumatic and violent situations.

Designing housing for modular construction is a unique process in the building industry — it requires careful consideration from the early stages of the project to ensure efficient and cost-effective results. There are some specific methods modular-built housing uses that differ from traditional stick building, including building for increased rigidity during transport and craning. We also try to complete as much as possible in the factory, especially in areas where on-site labour is both premium and scarce. These types of considerations change the way we need to approach our projects.

Saskatchewan has outpaced the national average for construction progress under the Rapid Housing Initiative with 100% of units approved under the first two RHI rounds completed by this fall. The key is collaborative partnerships and advanced construction methods. This article examines what development productivity looks like in practice, and how it relates to the CMHC’s new Housing Accelerator Fund.

The Home Fire Complex, the City of Regina’s Rapid Housing Initiative project being led by Silver Sage Housing, is one step closer to seeing residents move into their new home later this summer. This week, Big Block Construction, the development partner on the project, completed the modular craning process at the construction site at the corner of Broad Street and 5th Avenue North.

As a development partner, Big Block brings two primary methods of construction to the forefront of a project: stick-built and modular construction. Stick-built refers to the traditional method of building a home on-site, while modular construction involves constructing a home in a factory setting and then transporting it to the building site. When we’re helping our partners navigate the development journey, we also need to help them evaluate which method is right for the project.