Residents in a building in Hamilton’s Durand neighbourhood celebrated the holidays this month with food in one unit and games in another — and it wasn’t just the Christmas spirit that brought them together.
In June, tenants at 272 Caroline St. S. purchased their apartment building from their landlord as a co-operative. The process, which took over a year of organizing and required multiple sources of funding, is the first tenant-led conversion of an apartment to a co-op in Hamilton, the group says.
“We’re getting to become a big family-like,” resident Jim Reynolds told CBC Hamilton.
Residents say it has brought them closer, and given them a sense of security and empowerment, so much so that they’re working to help other tenants do the same.
Seeds planted 2 years ago
In December 2022, co-op member Emily Power was scrolling a real estate listings website and noticed her building was for sale. The low-rise brick apartment was listed for about $5.25 million, Power said.
“That was quite a shock. I hadn’t even been living here for a year at that point,” she told CBC Hamilton.
A tenant organizer who works in affordable housing, Power predicted a new owner would want to increase rents and expected they may try to push out existing residents, some of whom were seniors paying $1,000 or more below market rent.
Reynolds, 77, has been in the building since 1991. If he had to pay market rent with his pension, “I’d probably be living in a tent in some park,” the retired railroad worker said.
Power planned a meeting for tenants with her neighbours to discuss how they could “have each other’s backs and put up a fight.” The meetings were the first time many residents met each other, she said.
Early on, Power raised the possibility of forming a co-op. Instead of paying rent to an owner or owning property outright, members of co-ops share ownership of where they live.
The tenants met with the Golden Horseshoe Co-operative Housing Federation and the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada, which advocates for and supports co-ops. Those organizations warned them it would be difficult for a group of tenants to raise enough money to buy a building, but they were supportive, Power said. She had a friend who had worked with co-ops in Ontario, and started reaching out to organizations and foundations for tips and insight.
The tenants discussed their options and decided to give the co-op plan a go.
“I think people were excited by the idea and had the faith to give it a shot,” Power said.
They went public with their plan and made a tentative deal with their landlord to purchase the building if they could pay a 20 per cent down payment. They also worked to discourage other potential purchasers, warning them the building had an active tenants’ association that would publicly shame any competition.
In July 2023, owner Andrew Robertson told CBC Hamilton he was skeptical when he first heard the tenants’ plan, but was ultimately supportive. He said he and the tenants had reached an “impasse” over inspection reports.
Power said the residents tried to negotiate a lower price after an inspection report uncovered issues, but Robertson was reluctant. In June this year, they closed the deal for $4.8 million.
Knowing their home was secure and rents would stay affordable brought a “huge sense of relief,” Power said.
The city has been making moves toward building one of the largest affordable housing projects in decades. The Scarborough development will include more than 600 co-op units. Could the units, which are often more affordable than market rent, be part of the solution to the housing crisis? We sent Talia Ricci to find out.
Funding for the down payment came from about seven sources, Power noted, including a credit union and the city. Local co-ops also pitched in.
The success at Caroline Street shows “tenants are capable,” Power said, but it wasn’t easy. She said there were no obvious pathways to co-op conversion, meaning they had to do a lot of learning and seek support in many places.
Since the late 1990s, there have been relatively few new co-ops developed in Canada, but the model seems to be making a comeback. The federal government announced new funding for co-ops in 2023 and in June 2024, promised $1.5 billion to build “thousands of new co-op homes by 2028.”
“This is the largest investment to build new co-op housing in the last 30 years,” the Ministry of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada said in a news release.
In November, Montreal announced plans to sell more land to community organizations and housing co-ops. In Toronto, an east-end development is set to include over 600 co-op units, the most in years.
Push for more non-profit housing
In Hamilton, co-ops fit into a new plan to help community and non-profit housing providers to purchase private market units, Justin Lewis, the director of Hamilton’s Housing Secretariat, told CBC Hamilton. His office is focused on creating and maintaining affordable housing.
Lewis said he was involved in early discussions about the Caroline Co-operative, and they showed him the need for a streamlined finance and acquisition plan. Last year, the city determined it was losing 29 affordable units for every one it built. When someone’s home becomes unaffordable, Lewis said, their risk of homelessness increases, and homelessness is costly from a humanitarian and financial perspective.
“If you can keep someone housed and in their unit, those expenses are lessened,” Lewis said, adding that maintaining affordable units costs Hamilton less than building new ones.
His office is still working on specifics, Lewis said, but tools may include financing, rent supplements and tax exemptions for organizations looking to acquire non-profit housing.
Co-op to help others follow in their footsteps
Since closing the deal, Caroline Co-operative has been busy managing its property. The organization has bylaws that members wrote together, and dictate roles, responsibilities and procedures, Power said.
There’s a five-person board of directors, a maintenance committee, finance committee, membership committee, social committee and education committee, which is working with co-op organizations to teach other people how to follow in their footsteps.
The co-op had to create its own templates for documents, including end-lease agreements and operating budgets, Power said. The hope is co-ops that follow won’t have to do as much work.
The co-op has already heard from people seeking advice in Hamilton, Toronto, London, Ont., Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont., and British Columbia, Power said. It’s working on a case study and short documentary to be published in January.
“I know we’ll be hitting the curb a couple of times,” but the co-op is sure to inspire others, Reynolds said.
He’s serving a one-year term on the board and training other residents to do maintenance tasks, such as emptying the garbage and conducting minor repairs. Reynolds was the building’s de-facto-maintenance person under the previous owner, he said.
He and Power said they’re happy to have the power to make upgrades that residents have long wanted, such as modernizing the laundry room or putting in an elevator.
All the work has “for sure” been worth it, Power said.
“I got to hold on to my apartment that I love at a rent I can afford. And now I am part of this wonderful community.”