Marie Rose Place offers affordable housing for struggling single mothers new to Canada

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This article was published 06/02/2015 (4088 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Eleven-foot ceilings, designer furniture, in-suite laundry and giant windows looking out over downtown.

The shiny, new six-storey building on Edmonton Street is not a high-end hotel or condo for well-heeled Winnipeggers, but affordable housing for single moms struggling as newcomers to Canada.

“It’s amazing,” said Aida Jucutan, who moved into her third-floor, two-bedroom suite in Marie Rose Place with her teenage daughter in November. It was an emotional experience for the woman who trained as a nurse in the Philippines and now works as a caregiver in a group home.

“I was crying,” recalled Jucutan. “It’s very safe,” unlike the last apartment she and her daughter rented. And it was furnished with appliances, enthused Jucutan. “It has a built-in dishwasher, a washer and dryer and microwave oven.”

The $11-million project is a public-private partnership with the federal government and City of Winnipeg providing $2.8 million, the province pitching in $2 million and the developer, Hargrave Holdings Ltd., contributing $6.2 million.

The rent-geared-to-income block was a labour of love for Hargrave Holdings president Bob Dick after he read that more than 100 immigrant and refugee single moms and their kids come to Winnipeg on their own every year. They should have a nice, safe home to start over, said Dick.

“They’re paying rent. They deserve decent accommodations,” he said. The downtown building is next to busy St. Mary Avenue downtown, but there’s no traffic noise in the well-insulated suites with floor-to-ceiling windows.

The 40 suites are furnished with leather couches from EQ3 and new beds so the residents — many of whom arrived in Canada with little more than a suitcase — wouldn’t bring in used furniture that may have bedbugs, said Dick. Winnipeg-based companies EQ3, Palliser Furniture and Dufresne gave them a good deal on furnishings and appliances and installed everything at no charge, said Dick.

The main floor rec room has leather furniture, a fully equipped kitchen, shuffleboard and ping-pong tables. Like most family rec rooms, there are framed photos of the children who live there lining the walls. Unlike most rec rooms, there is no TV.

“The ladies voted it down,” said Dick. “They said ‘If we want to watch TV we’ll go upstairs to our apartments.’ ” The residents decided a TV in the common room would distract people from talking and getting to know each other. Besides, each suite has a TV with Internet access so the women and their kids are connected to the world and can watch programs that help them improve their English. Next door to them is Holy Names House of Peace, which offers support programs and services to residents regardless of their religious affiliation or cultural origin.

There are 36 two-bedroom apartments and four one-bedroom accessible suites, with each unit controlling its own heat and ventilation, said Dick.

The units are small, but don’t seem cramped because of the high ceilings and huge windows that let in so much light, said architect Hijab Mitra. She grew up in India and studied and worked in Britain, where she gained experience designing social housing in densely populated areas. In downtown Winnipeg on a 50-foot lot, Mitra with Mistecture Architecture and Interiors Inc. designed a building with eight units per floor and just 40 millimetres of room for error.

She consulted with Manitoba Housing about what she could do to avoid costly repair problems down the road at Marie Rose Place. The social housing agency told her they have to sometimes replace kitchens within a year because less-durable materials are used, she said.

That’s why the kitchen and bathroom countertops in Marie Rose Place are all quartz and the cupboard under the sink is lined with aluminum, Mitra said.

“Affordable housing is not cheap housing,” said Mitra. Still, she was able to stay within Manitoba Housing’s building-cost guidelines using materials that look better, last longer and make people happy to live there. “They care for it and look after it,” said Mitra. “There’s a sense of pride.”

 

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca