Pride of place

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This article was published 24/07/2022 (788 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Rainbow Resource Centre, the longest-running organization of its kind in Canada, is preparing to develop a 21-unit apartment complex in West Broadway for LGBTTQ+ seniors.

After several years of discussion — decades, according to executive director Noreen Mian — the resource centre decided to pursue the idea more seriously last year. The centre partnered with the Westminster Housing Society in its purchase of the property at 545 Broadway, a large parcel which includes Wilson House, a 118-year-old building that once served as a base of operations for Klinic Community Health Centre.

That building is municipally protected, so the proposed development — a four-storey residential complex and community hub the centre has tentatively named A Place of Pride — is imagined to be constructed to the west of the house, on the other side of an Indigenous healing garden which is already being tended to by a local elder.

Mian said the “deeply affordable” complex will likely be the first of its kind in Canada; other seniors’ housing has called itself affirming of LGBTTQ+ identity, but this project will be exclusively for LGBTTQ+ seniors, with an aim to provide a safe space for a group which can face discrimination in their late-in-life homes.

“We did a needs assessment survey a few years ago,” said Mian. “A lot of the responses came back indicating fear of entering seniors’ housing or long-term care, so we know there is a need for a place like this. In one form or another, the community has been discussing this for years.”

In the development, the resource centre received a loan from the Jubilee Fund to back its down payment for the purchase, which took effect June 1. And moving forward, the organization will work closely with the Westminster Housing Society, a local organization with vast experience in the affordable-housing sector and urban renewal in the neighbourhood. The housing society made an application to the Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation’s Rapid Housing Initiative, a federal program, and received an allotment of $5 million, meted out by the municipal government, which is tasked with allotting the federal funds.

Aside from the apartment complex, the resource centre will move its base of operations to 545 Broadway, taking the organization out of its current location on Scott Street in a building that Mian said cannot meet the growing needs of the community.

That building, which the resource centre began occupying in 2008, consists of three “small, crumpled” buildings “awkwardly connected by dark hallways,” said Mian. There’s no drop-in space, and the building’s remove from the public eye means it’s difficult for disconnected community members to spot or seek out. And some programs had to be cut simply for space sake.

On Broadway, Mian said that will not be an issue. The hub will be the resource centre’s first “purpose-built” home in its history, and will include the resource centre’s offices, a community space, affordable seniors’ housing, and a main level commercial space of some kind.

The project will be a huge undertaking, Mian said, with a capital campaign likely to begin in the near future. But the move is one that she feels is necessary to address a significant gap in housing and community outreach moving forward.

One indication of that need is the feedback from the recent needs assessment as well as growing enrolment in the resource centre’s Over the Rainbow program, which caters to LGBTTQ+ people over the age of 55. Mian said these individuals often face discrimination in seniors’ or 55+ housing, and some hide their sexual or gender identities in such settings to protect themselves.

That’s a problem she hopes the new complex starts to address, and one she hopes the entire housing system will some day address as well.

“We’re trying to create a safe home and community space for LGBTTQ+ seniors,” she said. “And at the same time, trying to breathe some life into what has historically been a vibrant place on Broadway.”

Nothing is quite set in stone, Mian said, but owing to the Rapid Housing Initiative’s tight timelines, the centre is targeting a fall 2022 start date for development.

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com