From an outsider’s perspective, Aurora Place looks like a pretty fine neighbourhood of 30 duplex-style townhouses. It’s clean, bright, open … picturesque even. There are picnic tables and a small playground in the freshly mowed grassy central park. It has beautiful antique-y street lamps and barely an iota of litter. Children are playing, with their parents watching nearby. Not a single boarded-up window, not a shingle needing replacement. In short, it looks good. Happy.
It’s been more than five years since the last keys were handed out to new homeowners of the Habitat for Humanity affordable housing complex and it shows no signs of disrepair or decrepitude, or any social ills. Many people still remember the controversy about the project before it started, however. While it wasn’t the first Habitat build in St. Albert (there are several duplex units in North Ridge and another single unit in Oakmont), it got the lion’s share of attention from the community at large and not all of it was positive.
For one thing, it required the city to rezone the former field that the public school district owned for a future school site. For another thing, the initial concept was to offer approximately 60 units on the three-acre land, which many thought would be overcrowded and lead to heavier traffic along adjacent Arlington Drive. Others predicted an increase in crime to decreases in neighbouring property values. A group of 14 Akinsdale residents even threatened to sue the city to stop it from happening though they later dropped the lawsuit. Letters to the editor belaboured the point that it wasn’t welcome, nor would the people who would eventually live there be. Someone spray-painted graffiti with that same message on the construction sign.
While time certainly has allowed cooler heads to prevail, there is at least a chance to look at whether the reality of the complex met people’s initial perceptions of it. Is it better or is it worse?
The better
Whatever grievances were expressed before it opened, it seems to have won over its neighbours at least.“I live five houses down, and we have never had an issue. The units fit in very well with our community,” said Keri McEachern Ballaji.
One anonymous Aurora tenant said, “I enjoy where I live. I love the fact that I have a home for my children. I love the area. For the most part, I would say that yes, everybody tends to get along.”
A recent block party was well attended and even had some drop-ins from neighbours who live outside the complex.
Many of Aurora’s residents have been there from the very beginning, including Mike Krill. While he admits that duplex life doesn’t suit his introverted nature, he said that it was the perfect solution for his financial situation at the time.
“It has literally allowed me and my kids to live in St. Albert. I was, at the time, actually looking at buying a mobile home outside of St. Albert somewhere. Trying to find an adequate place, well, St. Albert was just too expensive. I’m not joking. I literally couldn’t afford month-to-month rent along with all the utilities and expenses for children. There’s a lot of things that come out of my bank account. It was just unfeasible,” he said.
It’s reportedly a tight community of people and the changeover has been modest, with a few tenants moving out to be replaced by new ones each year. Within the first two years that it opened, there were four families that were evicted for not meeting Habitat’s policies about contributing volunteer hours.
In 2007, Habitat implemented a one-year probationary period during which new tenants must keep their home and yard in good condition and make their payments on time. Habitat then reinvests all mortgage payments back into the home ownership program.
Tenants must also complete their 500 hours of volunteer service within that year, which equates to nearly 10 hours of Habitat work per week on top of a person’s full-time job schedule. It’s what many people call sweat equity: contributing your services when you can’t contribute your cash.
That effort also serves to prove a family’s commitment to Habitat and helps the organization to continue offering low-cost housing to break the cycle of poverty for more and more people. It’s considered to be the largest not-for-profit builder in the world and it serves families that need the hand up who are not looking for a handout.
Krill says that of the 30 current Aurora families, there is a combined total of approximately 90 kids. His own children have friends in some of the other units.
“Our experience has been great. It’s been the hand up that we needed to be able to stay in St. Albert and I’ve been able to grow my career. It’s allowed the kids to stay in the community. Their friends have even moved into the complex. And a lot of people have moved out. They’ve made it to where they need to be so they take that opportunity and now they’ve gone on and other families are getting the same opportunity to try and better their situation,” Krill said.
He’s well on the path to do so himself. He has plans to move into a home next year, allowing another deserving family the same chance he had. There have been 45 families who are either currently living at Aurora or have moved on, said the Edmonton chapter's new president, Karen Stone.
"At least 30 per cent of the families that have moved on from the original intake have actually chosen to settle in St. Albert after they moved into conventional mortgages. It's brilliant because what it says is that they're staying. They're now a part of the St. Albert community," Stone said. "Their success is a demonstration that the project was extraordinarily successful."
She added that that figure blossoms up to 85 per cent when looking at the organization's portfolio of properties. Habitat's statistics also show that many children become more successful at school with the benefit of having stable housing that their parents take pride in.
Habitat has multiple other builds on the go but has no current plans to do another project in St. Albert. Not yet, anyway, Stone says, but the door is always open.
"If St. Albert came to us and said, 'We've got a piece of land and we think it might work for Habitat families,' we would be absolutely interested. We say that to every community out there."
The worse
The same anonymous commenter who loves the area and suggests that everybody tends to get along also has an issue with how the complex is run.“If a bylaw is broken, there’s no consequence,” the person said, referring to a trailer that was parked in one unit’s stall right at the entrance on one side of the complex.
The trailer was in disrepair and looked rundown despite the bylaws confirming that only working vehicles can be parked on site. According to this person, many residents made complaints about it though it still took at least a year and a half for the pressure to have any effect.
Krill holds a different opinion of the subject, saying that the homeowner was fixing up the trailer, which was to be used to help their business. That person has since established that business and moved away from Aurora Place.
It also wasn’t the first trailer to be parked in someone’s stall, Krill added. His only complaint was that a few bikes have been stolen – “Typical stuff.”
“Nobody’s doing anything overtly bad. I have lived in way worse places in St. Albert,” he said.
Things were worse at the beginning when there was vandalism at the construction site. The negative sentiments seemed to carry over to when people had moved in. Donations of food started appearing as a seemingly kind gesture, except for the hints that it might not be so good to eat it.
“We had received threats: ‘Be careful what you eat,’” Krill said.
They stopped accepting any donated food for fear it might be spiked or tampered with in some way. Those graffiti messages that the people weren’t welcome were getting louder but they didn’t make any more sense to Krill.
“What was really disappointing about all of that controversy is that all the people living in there were from St. Albert and all people who wanted to stay in St. Albert because they love St. Albert. For me, I grew up literally in the neighbourhood. Our entry way was where I caught the bus for years as a child. For me to raise my kids there, I was really, really excited about that,” he said.
The perspective
Life is good. Krill is happy, his kids are happy, and his neighbours are happy, too. He moved there because he found himself in a hole that he’s now about to climb out of, and he’s not alone.More than 550 families have lived in Habitat homes since the Edmonton chapter opened in 1991. Internationally, the organization has built, rehabilitated or preserved more than 800,000 homes in 70 countries since it was founded in 1976.
According to Habitat for Humanity Edmonton’s website, there are currently no home ownership opportunities available in Edmonton but interested people are encouraged to check back on the first two business days of each month.
Its homes are built by volunteers and donors and sold to qualified families. There are numerous qualifications, including having children under 18, having otherwise unsuitable housing or being unable to purchase a home, and have not owned a home previously. The gross family income must also be between $32,000 and $65,000 with one of the heads of the household being employed full-time throughout the year. This ensures that the tenants can keep up with the interest-free mortgage, which Habitat holds. It amortizes the mortgage to ensure that people don’t pay more than 25 percent of their income toward housing. Visit www.hfh.org for more information.
