Community Housing Catalyst
Housing. What an issue; so vast and far reaching, so complex touching all sectors and industries. From affordability, or the decreasing ability for even moderate income individuals and families to sustain themselves here, to accessibility, or the growing number of individuals and now families that are slipping into the social housing system or worse, into homelessness.
At Urban Matters CCC, we believe that shelter is a basic human right, and are developing a suite of projects and initiatives to explore how we might go about improving outcomes for everyone. To help us achieve this, we aim to hire a Community Housing Catalyst on a full-time basis, to lead in the development of this social/community housing portfolio across Western Canada. We're looking for a leader, a community housing expert, with established credibility in developing and implementing social and community housing solutions. We expect that this will include, but not be limited to:
- Wide ranging and always growing knowledge of the different kinds of housing models and solutions to meet the needs of our vulnerable populations,
- Expertise and understanding in creating the social finance backbone supporting these solutions and concepts, including a strong working knowledge of and familiarity with social enterprise business models,
- Ability to play the lead role in shaping and managing our portfolio and making it happen,
- Ability to play an active role throughout the implementation of solutions, from concept development to project assembly to structuring project financing to design and construction, to incubating new housing social enterprises to sustain them,
- A credibility and comfort working across sectors and developing suitable partnerships, from governments to private land developers to banks and lending institutions to non-profit housing providers to funding agencies, and back again, and,
- A desire to share and present learnings, as a thought leader, to inspire others and scale our successes.
What do we mean by 'Community Housing'? Definitions matter and we recognize that the housing spectrum is fraught with uncertainty and individual interpretation. To be clear, this role is primarily focused upon innovation and solutions to support non-market housing for our more vulnerable populations.
About You
In addition to the above, we expect that you will have 5-10+ years of progressive experience in Community Housing, preferably in Western Canada, supported by a related post-secondary diploma/degree. You are a social entrepreneur, with the heart of a community advocate and the mind of a business strategist. Solutions and outcomes focused, impatient with the status quo, and motivated to implement change. You develop relationships and partnerships naturally; people and organizations are naturally drawn to you. You work exceptionally well with others and have a tendency to make everyone around you a little better. Together, we need to move the needle and improve housing outcomes for those who need it most.
About Us
Well our website says that Urban Matters CCC is one of Canada’s new C3 social enterprises; a Community Contribution Company. Our business is to strengthen and scale the efforts of leading social entrepreneurs and organizations, to break new ground in community development and social innovation. With the heart of a community organization and the ethos of a business, we are your implementation partner to help make the big ideas happen.
We stress that our ambitions are to be impactful in the practical and applied sense. This is action oriented, we use lots of verbs, we aspire to get things done and make the changes happen. We believe that many of the great ideas that begin to address many of our toughest issues are already out there, and the challenge lies in scaling and implementation. Our measures of success are practical, will include how many individuals we help to successfully and sustainably house, and the innovation and sustainability of our business models to support their transitions over the longer term.
We are based in Western Canada, but can and do work Nationally. We would not prioritize international work at this point in time, we know there are plenty of issues that need our attention right here in our own backyard. We work virtually, and recognize that sitting in offices isn't going to make change happen. Most of our Catalysts live where they need to live, and accept that they need to be where they need to be to create the outcomes we seek. Sometimes that involves travel, and sometimes a lot of it. Compensation will be commensurate with experience.
Does this sound like you? If so, we'd love to hear from you. Please reply in confidence to info @ urbanmatters.ca by 4pm PST on Tuesday, February 28th, 2017.
