Demonstration Site Engagement: St. Joseph’s Continuing Care Centre
Initiating a Housing Project:
SJCCC is in the initial stages of exploring the feasibility of building affordable housing for older adults to address community needs and to compliment its existing assets and capabilities. They are building a case for investment, learning more about the external landscape and beginning to develop an early vision (Stages 1 & 2 of the Building with Mission Housing Development Framework)
Building with Mission Housing Development Framework
After several conversations with the Building With Mission working group, select tools and methodologies were identified to help advance their work at this stage of development. We engaged in four workshops to support SJCCC’s to advance their efforts:
I. Stakeholder Mapping
II. Foresight + Strategic Implications
III. Problem and Opportunity Mapping
IV. Low Fidelity Prototyping
I. Stakeholder Mapping
In May 2020, a team of five staff from SJCCC participated in a stakeholder mapping exercise. Over the course of this session, three themes emerged:
Hear Directly from Seniors: This exercise highlighted the importance of hearing directly from seniors themselves about their housing needs, recognizing they are the stakeholders most impacted by the project outcome. The team discussed the need to continue to engage and advocate for seniors throughout the process and to ensure that their voice is central in the decision-making process.
Tap into Community Knowledge: The team also discussed the power of tapping into a broader range of community members, organizations, as well as all orders of government to learn from existing in-depth research on community need and potential gaps. They felt there were precedents to learn from and want to capitalize upon community knowledge. Using a power/interest matrix, it was identified that there were several important external stakeholders and an intentional effort will be required to reach out and build relationships with these organizations.
Need to be Proactive: The power/interest matrix also brought to the forefront a range of stakeholders who may not currently be interested in new affordable housing for older adults, but who could be strong supporters if the St. Joseph’s team proactively engaged them in the process.
“We are truly energized and building on the momentum from yesterday's session. The team quickly assembled the names [of key stakeholders to reach out to], and we are ready for the next phase.” - Executive Director, SJCCC
II. Foresight + Strategic Implications
In this workshop, the Building With Mission working group introduced four scenarios of the future of housing, care and aging which the project Steering Committee had generated collectively. We used these scenarios to initiate a deep internal dialogue about what the future might hold.
Approximately 20 participants were involved in identifying a range of strategic implications associated with each scenario - specifically looking at the economic, political, and cultural implications of each. We then explored how SJCCC can plan for each future scenario and what steps would need to be undertaken. More details from the workshop can be found here.
III. Problem and Opportunity Mapping
Approximately 15 participants joined the problem and opportunity mapping workshop including clients, external stakeholders, board members, and staff. To help the group articulate the problem they wanted to address, we prioritized two questions and grouped the responses from each into eight thematic areas.
What are the biggest housing gaps faced by seniors in our community?
Lack of housing diversity - The current options to house seniors do not recognize the diversity of older adults that need may need somewhere affordable to live
Difficult to navigate - The current housing system for seniors is difficult to navigate with few available units available that actually meet the specific needs of older adults
Undersupply of affordable units - Many options are not affordable for older adults with a low fixed income, and those options that are affordable are not available
Waitlists are long - When housing options do become available, a long waitlist quickly develops; the same is true for support services that might allow an older adult to age in place
Lack of multigenerational housing - Multigenerational housing options, or even housing where family is close by, is limited resulting in a lack of informal / community based support and fewer seniors who can successfully age in place
Limited access to support services - Access to supportive housing or services for older adults is restricted, resulting in inequitable and insufficient service access or access only when in crisis
Few options for older adults with dementia: The current housing stock and related resources does not adequately meet the needs of older adults with differing cognitive abilities including dementia
Few accessible housing options: The case is similarly true for older adults with differing physical abilities, including the need for accessible units, buildings, and related transportation
2. What barriers might our organization face in building housing for seniors?
Community Support: Support and will from the community to pursue a building project
Funding: Availability of funding and expertise to navigate the options that are available
Land: Limited availability of land on which to build and growing competition of uses for the land that is available
Approvals Process: Lengthy municipal approvals process for new builds
Understanding the Needs of Older Adults: Current guidelines and policies don’t accurately represent the needs of today’s seniors; significant work is required to better understand and address true needs
Co-Design and Engagement: Our capacity to co-design the new building with older adults
Long-term Planning: Housing is new for us so understanding what demand will be over the medium to long term is a challenge
Design Expertise: The is limited internal expertise related to designing housing projects
The group then identified a range of opportunities for addressing the housing gaps faced by older adults. These opportunities are summarized here and set the stage for some early prototyping.
IV. Low-Fidelity Prototyping
Ten participants from SJCCC convened to prototype early housing ideas for older adults. These prototypes built on the opportunities that emerged from the problem and opportunity mapping workshop from a week earlier (see above).
We began by discussing the major themes that had emerged in the previous workshop, and then prioritized a theme to move forward into prototyping.
For each theme we developed a series of “How Might We” statements (HMWs). HMWs help us to better understand where the opportunities are to achieve a range of objectives or opportunities before we begin to prototype solutions. Some of the HMWs included:
HMW bring everything seniors need into one place?
HMW build a campus of care leveraging the real estate assets we already have?
HMW develop more customized approaches to housing and care that meet people's needs as they change?
Participants then generated as many ideas as they could to address these questions and discussed the connections between the ideas before coming up with two prototypes.
Prototype One: Cornwall’s Campus of Care
This prototype was visualized as a Campus of Care that emphasizes a patient-centered model.
Prototype Two: Accommodating seniors throughout their lifetime
This prototype imagined ways to adapt senior’s housing to accommodate older adults as their needs change throughout their lifetime.
Link for more information on this process and the prototypes.
Next Steps
The Building with Mission and SJCCC jointly participated in a retrospective conversation about the four workshops to identify what had worked well, areas for improvement, learnings, and key next steps. This was a significant process that emphasizes the importance of iteration, and ensuring we craft our workshops in more beneficial ways.
SJCCC indicated that they have become galvanized to do more about the housing shortage in the community. Some of the major learnings that they took away when reflecting on the sessions cumulatively. They include:
Community (“The importance of our mission in the community”, How willing community partners are to work together”)
Innovation and Creativity (“That we want to be innovative” )
Seniors’ needs (“What’s really important to our seniors)
New Barriers (“Barriers to developing a new, outside-the-box approach”)
Moving forward, their short term action plan is to further develop and expand on the prototypes that were created in their last workshop, and to focus on the different sources of funding and financing for a housing development.
As SJCCC moves forward on imminent next steps, the findings and insight generated throughout the workshops will help inform their housing work, as will the creation of the Building with Mission playbook. SJCCC will provide important feedback from the perspective of a potential user of the playbook, validating the content that other organizations would find beneficial. We look forward to other potential opportunities for collaboration between the Building with Mission team and SJCCC in the future.