Home-Share Infrastructure Perspective

In 1939, at the outset of World War II, the population of Halifax was 67,872. By 1945, when the war had ended six years later, the population had ballooned 40% to 106,742. Halifax was the Canadian east coast naval and shipping centre for troops and goods to Europe. Tens of thousands of sailors and soldiers were rotated in and out of Halifax.

During those six years as the city evolved into a regional centre for all manner and kinds of commercial activity and governmental services, there was an accommodation crisis. There was no infrastructure in place to support the development of a robust short-term rooming house program. Emergency bedding was set up in the hulls of ships anchored in the harbour. Soldiers camped out in what today are labelled as tent cities in neighbourhood parks. This created a city-wide level of stress and conflict between residents and transient wartime troops that escalated into physical conflicts on occasion; a black mark on a city that otherwise prided itself as a good place to live and work.

There were signs of this reoccurring in the HRM in recent years as the city grappled with this new influx of people. There is a public policy resolve to avoid any semblance of the World War II accommodation crisis. 

Nova Scotia prides itself in being the locus of ten universities and a robust network of community colleges. It’s a popular destination for international students.  Cape Breton University (CBU) stands out with approximately 6,000 full-time and part-time students, of which roughly two thirds are international. Since 2017, enrollment at CBU has more than doubled,^] with the number of students increasing by over 1,000 per year in 2018, 2019, and 2022. In 2023, total enrollment at CBU increased by 53.6% compared to the previous year. There is a province-wide student housing problem.

There is a national affordable accommodation crisis. Federal and provincial governments are developing comprehensive residential home ownership and rental programs to put the requisite infrastructure in place that will enable the private and public sectors to articulate the architecture and operational framework for solutions. There is an acknowledgement that implementing a comprehensive operational framework will take time.

Homesharing is an integral component of the comprehensive solution to the affordable housing crisis. In the post World War II era the UK demonstrated the important role that “boarding houses” in residential neighbourhoods played in providing single men and women with accommodation in otherwise empty bedrooms while a nation- wide initiative to reconstruct bombed out neighbourhoods was put in place.

Happipad has developed the infrastructure and expertise to work with communities in the development of customized architecture and operational frameworks to implement homesharing programs that will add value to homeowners and their neighbourhoods. As is the case with  affordable home ownership and rental programs, comprehensive homesharing is not a one stop short term solution. There is a learning curve. Happipad has the demonstrable expertise to mentor and guide stakeholders in a designated community whether it be of a residential or institutional nature through that learning curve in which success will be measured incrementally step by step with tacit recognition that time is on the communities side.

This blog post is written by John G. Kelly, provides a perspective on Happipad Home-sharing. For inquiries, please contact John at [email protected] or visit www.johngkelly.ca.

* Yvette D”Entremont , Halifax Examiner. November 23, 2023.

** Mark Stevenson. The Belonging Advantage. – How Quality of Life is Translating into Big Economic Gains for Atlantic Canada. Public Policy Forum.  January 2024 at P.5.

***www.johngkelly.ca – NORCs & ARCs page.