...process (planning, construction and management) are analyzed. The study concludes with four principles for socially sensitive housing strategies: multiplicity of approaches to decision-making, promoting desirable natural-physical relationships, valuing citizen participation, and promoting innovative economic relationships.

Keywords: social housing, urban core areas, affordable housing, citizen participation, mid-size cities, participatory research

Resume

Cet article, base sur le concept de strategie d'habitation social, examine trois modeles de logement prix modique a Kitchener en fonction de leur potentiel vis-a-vis la participation des gens en marge de la societe. L'article examine egalement es modeles de prise de decision concernant le processus de construction, soit la planification, la construction et la gestion. L'etude conclut en suggerant quatre principes pour les stratdgies de logement social. Il s'agit de la multiplicite d'approche pour le processus de prise de decision, promouvoir des relations environnementales (nature-physique) desirable, promouvoir la participation des citoyens et des relations economiques innovatrices.

Mots cles: logement a prix modique, quartier centraux, participation des citoyens, ville de taille moyenne, recherche collaborative

Introduction

Low vacancy rates, aging housing stock, derelict houses, absentee landlords, transient populations and over concentration of low-income tenants are common in downtown and inner-city neighborhoods in Canada. Trends today in almost all Canadian cities indicate that income inequality is growing and that the total percentage of people living in poverty is also increasing. Social polarization is a reality in Canadian cities. (Canadian Council on Social Development 2003, Quader et al. 2003, Burone 2002).

In this context, lack of adequate, affordable and safe housing is also an escalating problem, especially since the Canadian government ceased direct provision of social housing in 1995 (1). In contrast to developing countries and traditional societies where house building continues to be a self-managed and often a self-build activity, in Canada the 'act of building' has been institutionalized and is delivered either by government bodies or by the private sector.

Illich (1972) suggests that the legal protection and the financial support of the (construction) industry reduces and cancels opportunities for the otherwise much more efficient self-builder of affordable housing. Turner, a housing theorist whose work addresses both developing countries and more developed nations, concludes that local control over housing is essential and depends on personal and local access to resources, which must be guaranteed by central governments (Turner 1991). Colin Ward concurs: "Even when governments make no such guarantee, it is clear that the poor in some (though by no means all) of the exploding cities of the Third World often have a freedom to maneuver which has been totally lost by the poor of the decaying cities of the rich world, who are deprived of the last shred of personal autonomy and human dignity, because they have nothing they can depend on apart from the machinery of welfare"(Ward 1976, p.6). These housing theorists agree on the importance and complementarities of three kinds of social and political energy in facilitating housing processes: state powers, market forces and "people power' manifested through local community initiatives.

This article focuses on the potential of 'people power', while taking into account the importance of state and market powers in creating successful housing initiatives. Our study examined processes for affordable housing in inner-city neighborhoods around the downtown core in the urban, mid-sized Canadian city of Kitchener. Our major research interest has been in analyzing if and how housing processes can create enabling environments so that economically disadvantaged and marginalized members of society can be effectively involved in the political mechanisms that underpin housing and urban renewal issues.

Below, we review our research process, discuss models of socially sensitive housing derived from the Kitchener case study, and analyse citizen involvement in the decision-making processes associated with each. We conclude with a discussion of four guiding principles for generation of socially sensitive housing.

For this study, we have defined socially sensitive housing as a group of alternative delivery mechanisms that have been constituted in order to address the housing needs of people not well served by more conventional approaches. We have identified three models of socially sensitive housing currently in use in Kitchener:

a) Assisted housing, including partnerships for capital funding as well as other regional government interventions and various state-assisted cooperative models for affordable housing;

b) Alternate tenures that focus on creative financing mechanisms;

c) Mixed-uses that promote skills and capacities, identified by our research partner, the Working Centre, as 'community tools'--human and material resources necessary for creating viable communities in the downtown core (Illich 1972, Illich 1981).

Despite their diversity and individual unique characteristics, socially sensitive housing models share some key characteristics:

* Maximizing the use-value of buildings and the downtown for future dwellers by creating assets for the community at large as well as catering to individual and household needs,

* Recycling finances in the local economy by building local skills and community capacities, and promoting mixed uses or clusters of livelihood networks that serve multiple functions,

* Most critically, maximizing the decision-making role of the user in different aspects of the housing process so that more of the resource inputs are converted into benefits for the dweller.

The Research Process

Research for this study took place over a 15-month period in 2001-2002, and was carried out in partnership with The Working Centre, a voluntary sector organization working in downtown Kitchener. Initially, discussions with the staff at the Working Centre and with patrons at the associated St John's Kitchen helped the researchers to become acquainted with issues in housing pertinent to downtown Kitchener and, more specifically, with the concerns of the disadvantaged groups that are typically left out in the course of municipal planning process for housing. This core of primary data was enriched through interviews and discussions with regional and municipal planners and with representatives of local organizations that have an interest in affordable housing, including the Kitchener Downtown Community Health Centre, Kitchener Housing Inc., and the Kitchener Social Planning Council.

Notable contributions to the research were made by a group started by people who are or have previously been homeless or at risk with respect to housing. This informal group calls itself Kitchener Downtown Dreams. The group came together initially to discuss the City of Kitchener's revitalization plan and includes people from low and middle-income families, people receiving social assistance and other people living, volunteering or working in Kitchener's downtown or in the inner-city neighborhoods. Concepts that emerged from the Kitchener Downtown Dreams meetings were compiled in a report and presented to representatives from the City of Kitchener, as an alternative proposal for downtown revitalization. The presentation took place during a formal dialogue organized in conjunction with this study. The dialogue was facilitated by the Civics Research Group associated with the University of Waterloo's Community University Research Alliance. In addition to members of Kitchener Downtown Dreams and the Civics Research Group, those invited included representatives from the Region of Waterloo Departments of Planning, Housing and Community Services, the City of Kitchener's Economic Development Division, Kitchener Housing Inc., the University of Waterloo, the Downtown Community Health Centre, The House of Friendship, The Working Centre and some citizens involved in social housing initiatives in Kitchener-Waterloo. One important action research component of this study involved working with group members on development of the Downtown Dreams group, facilitation of meetings and workshops, production of the report and organizing the dialogue.

The primary research has been based mostly on participant observation, informal interviews and facilitated meetings and workshops carried out as a modified form of participatory action research (Stringer 1996; Reason 1994). The fieldwork involved extensive interactions with people directly affected by the City of Kitchener's Downtown Revitalization initiatives and the Region of Waterloo's Affordable Housing programs. Interactive methods and participatory techniques of gathering information included one-on-one structured and semi-structured interviews with key informants, small group discussions and workshops, recording of oral history and mapping and design exercises.

The research also drew significantly on secondary sources including Statistics Canada's census data on local demographics, City of Kitchener reports, Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) research studies, and research carried out by the School of Planning at the University of Waterloo under the Community-University-Research-Alliance (CURA) initiative.

Conceptual Framework

This study was inspired at the outset by the philosophy and empirical experience of Kitchener's Working Centre (www.theworkingcentre.org), and is conceptually grounded in theory developed by Turner, Habraken and Hamdi (Turner 1972, 1976, 1991, Habraken 1972, Hamdi 1991, Hamdi and Goehert 1997) on housing; by Jacobs and Vanderberg (Jacobs 1961, 1970, 2002, Vanderberg 2000) on the mechanisms of cities; and by the work of the Institute for Development Studies on sustainable livelihoods (Chambers and Conway 1992, Leach et al. 1997, Scoones 1998). We take a systems perspective, viewing housing as one aspect of the built environment, which in turn is nested within a much larger socio-ecological context. Housing processes are in continuous interaction with other aspects of the social and natural environment and are constantly being transformed by those interactions (Turner 1976). Housing outcomes are a result of a reciprocating complex relationship between natural, social and economic processes in urban environment (Habraken 1972).

Analysis of how 'entitlements' shape the dynamics of distribution of resources has been discussed in the context of food-scarcity by Sen (Gore 1993, Sen 1988), and with regards to livelihoods by the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex (Leach et al. 1997). Entitlements refer to the...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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