Plenty of pride in first phase of queer-friendly West Broadway housing complex

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This article was published 09/12/2024 (298 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There’s “pride” in the name and pride in a new West Broadway housing complex.

Rainbow Resource Centre’s Place of Pride, a building exclusively for older queer and transgender people, opened the doors to its first tenants in August.

As of Monday, the 21-unit 55-plus building had just one unit available.

“You can see the power of a shared space, of a community environment, to really change lives,” said Rainbow Resource Centre chair Matthew Cutler. “It makes me proud to be able to do this work.”

Ground broke on the building in late 2022, marking the first phase of a $20-million, first-in-Canada campus. The rent-geared-to-income complex at 545 Broadway was built alongside Rainbow Resource Centre’s main building, formerly Wilson House, owned by Klinic.

The one- and two-bedroom accessible suites were rented quickly, underscoring the need for queer-friendly housing projects in Winnipeg and across Canada, Cutler said.

“It’s quite surprising to me that there is no place like Place of Pride in Canada,” he said. “I can’t wait to see what new national first and provincial milestones will come as we build this space together.”

Canada Life announced a $750,000 donation to Rainbow Resource Centre’s second phase of the campus Monday. The donation will help to fund the construction of a community, programming and peer-support hub on the same property. It will serve as a visiting area and event space and include a cafe and multi-purpose rooms.

Construction on the remainder of the 12,000-square-foot campus is expected to break ground early next year.

“That’s our neighbour across the street, and this is an important part of our city,” Canada Life president Paul Mahon said at Monday’s funding announcement. “The (LGBTTQ+) community, we see it as a thriving, energetic community that that is part of who we are and part of what Winnipeg is and we want to support that community.”

Statistics Canada reports that due to a history of discrimination, exclusion and fear of stigmatization, some LGBTTQ+ seniors choose not to be openly out and may not seek inclusion in the wider community.

Data from 2020 shows LGBTTQ+ Canadians are more likely to be low income and at greater risk of losing access to secure housing.

Sunshine House and 2Spirit Manitoba are planning a similar, $13-million complex on Notre Dame Avenue for two-spirit people. The planned facility, dubbed Queer Village, will create six emergency residential shelter units with 11 beds, 14 transitional housing units and seven social housing units.

Albert McLeod, a two-spirit elder and LGBTTQ+ advocate, said the city needs to expand access to amenities, housing and cultural supports for the LGBTTQ+ community and the housing projects are good places to start.

“Housing is key,” McLeod said. “We see a lot of issues with two-spirit people not having proper support when they come to age and we need more culturally safe projects.”

In November’s throne speech, the province reaffirmed its support for Place of Pride. To date, the project has received $3 million through provincial funding and $5 million from the federal Rapid Housing Initiative.

Cutler said the space will bring together the queer community in a new way.

“When you know there’s a place where, when you go there, people will know you, or at least they will know about you and your life, and that you will be welcome there, is so critical,” he said.

“What we’re trying to build together is going to be, I think, the bedrock foundation of the future of this community now that we’ve got this space to come home to.”

Rainbow Resource Centre bought the former Klinic building in May 2022, making the centre the first LGBTTQ+ organization in Canada to own its own property.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca