Dan Lussier & Jennifer Rodrigue - Co-Habit: Building Inclusive Housing Solutions

Stuart Murray  0:00  
This podcast was recorded on the ancestral lands, on treaty one territory, the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe Cree, Oji Cree, Dakota and the Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Metis nation.

Amanda Logan (Voiceover)  0:19  
This is humans on rights, a podcast advocating for the education of human rights. Here's your host, Stuart Murray

Stuart Murray  0:32  
Manitoba. In fact, all of Canada is facing a severe housing crisis marked by soaring rents, limited affordability options and record low vacancy rates, rising costs and inadequate supply have left many hundreds of 1000s struggling providing safe, secure and affordable house now today on this podcast, I am joined by two people who are solution or driving towards solutions for this crisis. And I'm delighted to welcome Dan Lussier, CEO of racial compassion network, and Jennifer Rodrigue from CO habit to both of you. Welcome to humans on rights.

Dan Lussier  1:12  
Thank you. Super glad to be here.

Stuart Murray  1:15  
So Dan, just let me just sort of start with you for a second. Jen, I'll throw it over to you in a second. But Dan, for those that are just listening, tell us a little bit about you, your your your role as CEO at racial compassion network and sort of what you're, what you what you do.

Dan Lussier  1:31  
Yeah, thanks, Stuart, so yeah, I've been involved with the recobascentral network for just over 15 years now. It's an organization that was created by the great nuns here in Manitoba, who've been involved in our province for a very long time, particularly in the health health sector, and in developing organizations that support people here in community and and they've entrusted us now. They've created the azo compassiono network to take over all the overall kind of the stewardship responsibilities for a number of health and human service agencies here in Manitoba that they've created, and since then, other women religious congregations have transferred their organizations to us. And your listeners will probably know some of these organizations. There's st Boniface hospital, st ama Santa, Santa Accio Margaret, we've put up with st rose hospital as well, Cerro Rio, a number of organizations. There's about 13 of them. Our role as an organization is to do whatever we can without getting in the way of these organizations through the work of the boards we appoint to support them as best we can. There's a piece about culture that's important to us. It's very human work, and we can't forget that in a very complex system. When people come through their doors, they're they're likely not, because they want to be there. There's a barrier, a challenge, and we not, we've got to respect that and walk with them. So we'll do a lot of work on culture. We'll do some investments in processes that allow boards and management teams to make, you know, good decisions. But our work of late has really been, you know, if the sisters showed up on the banks of the river, where would they go? Where are the needs in community today? And we'd like to be a little bit of a catalyst to see what are those emerging needs and issues, and what gifts can we bring to the table to be a part of developing solutions so empowering people, fostering solutions to, you know, build solutions we hope that help people that are facing so many barriers in our community. Hence our involvement in this project and working with cohabit and Jen and others from her team on a vision we hope is going to do our part anyways, on that big challenge you just talked about.

Stuart Murray  3:40  
So, you know, Dan, thanks for the kind of the the professional side of things. It's just give me a little paragraph on on Dan Lucier, the guy like, Oh, my CEO for of visual compassion network. I mean, prior to that, I mean, when it was the other iteration for a number of years. But just tell us a little bit about Dan Lucier.

Dan Lussier  4:00  
Well, I'm born and raised here in Manitoban. I spent a little time in BC when I was a kid, came back here with the family, then did a little time in down east in Ottawa. I came back and met my lovely partner. We have four wonderful human beings. Our daughters are incredible people. I love this community, I love this place, I love this province. I've done a bunch of different things. Stuart, I'm probably the most unlikely to have ever gotten to where I've gotten without any clear design and path, just bumping into great people along the way. I've dabbled a little bit in politics. I was working with a federal cabinet minister in my younger years, Ron Duhamel. Some people may remember him. I was chief of staff with Glenn Murray at a point, and when he was the mayor, I was the CEO of Fischer. So just this unlikely journey, an incredible journey, which has always been really. In some way to community and and trying to be of service in some way. So, so here I am given the gift of the opportunity to work with this organization that's just an incredible grouping of people and organizations and doing good out there. And, yeah, so that's Dan Lucy kind of a an adventurous pathway, kind of happy, happy, positive outlook most days. And yeah, here I am,

Stuart Murray  5:25  
you know, and always linked with one key word I think, of everything you do, the thread that follows you is your passion, yeah, yeah, yes. Probably Great to have you on on on this humans on rights podcast. Dan, thanks so much, Jen. Let me throw it to you for a second, same sort of thing. I'm not going to try and be too repetitious, but just at the outset here, just to kind of set the stage as to, you know who my guests are, tell us a little bit about you. Your role at co host, and what kind of got you excited to be a part of this project?

Jennifer Rodrigue  5:56  
Yeah, thanks, Stuart. So I have a bit of a similar journey to Dan, where I kind of ended up, where I am not by any sort of design. And started my career as a political staffer as well with the provincial cabinet minister, and then moved on to work in the not for profit sector, so through the Red Cross and the Winnipeg Folk Festival, and then spent 17 years with cinema and moved from there into this role at cohabit and I also, so that's a half time role for me, and then also a half time role with ACCION Margarit, working on strategic initiatives. And so that's kind of my passion now, is to work on things that are related to social justice and human rights and things that are new and innovative, whether they should be innovative or not,

Stuart Murray  6:49  
you made them innovating, right? 

Jennifer Rodrigue  6:50  
Yeah, yeah. 

Stuart Murray  6:53  
And you're a Manitoban, yeah,

Jennifer Rodrigue  6:56  
born and raised in Manitoba. I have three, almost all adult children, great partner. And, yeah, I've, I've been here all my life. I love Winnipeg. I love Manitoba.

Stuart Murray  7:09  
The reason, of course, is the but this podcast is all about educators, advocates in the community, specifically with a human rights perspective. And you know, I think that the project de suites Marion that you have both come together on, I'm not sure, Dan, let me start with you, just to sort of talk about, what was the emphasis, what was the vision behind doing this? And then obviously, I want to see how it is that you decided to, if I could use the term, this is my term, partner, you correct me if I'm wrong with cohabit and get Jen to kind of jump in on that?

Dan Lussier  7:41  
Yeah, absolutely. And maybe just to clarify just one point to Stuart le Street, Marion turned out to be a model that we learned from that we are now applying for to use in a new project with with cohabit on a property that was part of the city's efforts to make property available for these types of projects. And so le suit Marion's vision really came with, I mean, you started our journey today about the huge issue around housing, and let's call it deep, affordable, affordable housing, and they're very difficult projects to pull off. Just given construction costs, you know you need to get real low interest rates, you need long amortization periods. And if you're charging affordable and hopefully deeply affordable rents, there's always going to be a gap, and so you got to find that capital and that gap, and it's got to be funded somehow. And that's where, you know, various government programs come together, but it's a real big challenge. And in our mind, if we wanted to understand how to put these projects together, no better way than to do one. And in our minds as well. You know, housing, which is for Canada, I think they passed it is, it's a human right. So, so it's not just housing. If we're going to be doing affordable and deeply affordable, particularly deeply affordable, likely people who may be able to get into those units probably have a whole bunch of other barriers that they're up against, right? Whatever those look like. So it's got to be housing plus, right? If we're going to house them, how do we make sure they have the wraparound services, sense of belonging, community, so that they can flourish? And in our case, we were able to think through how those supports could come by striking some partnerships with our own network organizations. So le Street, Marion right now is, is a 48 unit apartment building. 20 are between deep and deep, affordable rates. And each of those 20 units, we've got relationships with our network organizations. Let me give you an example. We have, I believe, seven units that are. Dedicated to serial clients, so people living with mental health challenges that are being supported by serial are able to access those units at deeply affordable rates and continue with the support of serial. We have the same type of relationship with st AMA, who's taken a number of the units as well for their clients, and we've got a privileged relationship here, saying in st Boniface, with an organization called La Caille Francophone. And there is settlement agency here in st Boniface, particularly with a focus where Francophone new Canadians and immigrants and refugees, which is still a priority for this province to welcome French speaking immigrants. And so the rest of the facility, or those affordable units, and in this case, we built three bedroom units to welcome larger families at county manages, and we're able to support people who are choosing to come to our community to restart or continue their journey here in our community. So that was a project that opened up probably about 12 months ago. Now, not a little bit a little bit more. We've been full ever since. The Economics of all that seems to work. We were able to go through CMHA and a couple of programs they had in place. And so then the dreaming began. So so we could do this. How do we apply it next? And that's where we've had conversations we knew about cohabit and the incredible work they do, and you're just about to hear from that and thought, okay, they've got a real need here in community, a real a real important group of people that that deserve better. Can we? Can we emulate this, this project? I can get into the other stuff a little later on, how the city came to be and where we might go, but I think I'll hand it off if you're okay. Stuart to Jen and cohabit to hear about the incredible work and the vision that we're kind of pulling together for this next iteration, we hope of an affordable

Stuart Murray  12:01  
housing play. Yeah, no. Thanks, Dan, I appreciate that. Yeah, no. Great, great segue for you.

Jennifer Rodrigue  12:06  
John, yeah, thanks, Dan. I think co habit was envisioned and founded by Margie Nelson, and Margie founded the Movement Center, and was the executive director at the Movement Center for many years, and she is the mom to twin boys who are now in their early 30s, and one of them has cerebral palsy, and so still lives with Margie and her husband. And I think you know her personal experience, and then through her work at the Movement Center, she met lots of people who had similar experiences to her, where they have, you know, a child or someone in their life who has a complex physical disability and after childhood, our system in Manitoba doesn't really offer equitable supports for People with profound physical disabilities, as they would for people with intellectual disability. So margie's dream is to build an inclusive, supportive apartment block where people with physical disability can live in, in and amongst people like you and me, you know, like with the thought of, why would they be segregated? And right now, that can happen. You can move into your own apartment. There are some challenges. Accessibility, for sure, is a really big challenge in our province, our building codes do not provide adequate accessibility for people who actually have profound physical disabilities. So that's one of the areas we're working to address. And the second is the support model. So if you need full support with all of your activities of daily living, so that would be getting out of bed, getting dressed, brushing your teeth, showering, having your meals. So those are the parts of our day that are not actually the interesting parts of our day, right? That's just how we live our life. For people with profound disability, adults who don't qualify for Community Living disability services, they would receive those services through home care. And if you have experienced the home care system, it's got limited hours. You know that they max out after a certain number of hours per week, and they're only available at your home. So that means that you have to be at your home all of the time in order to receive services or help, and you can't receive home care unless you have somebody that they can call for backup, so if they're not available, so for somebody whose parents might die, if they don't have somebody else who could be that backup, they would no longer qualify for home care. So we've got people essentially living in their family home for a really long time until that will inevitably break down once parents age, or there's a family. Breakdown. They're living in an apartment with sub adequate care and stuck and sort of, there's, there's been, you know, a human rights challenge and a campaign called locked out of life, because essentially, that's how people feel. They're stuck in their apartment, and that's not really living. Or you can go and apply to live in a personal care home. And so then you would be living out decades of your life in a personal care home, where people are really meant to live there for about 18 to 24 months at the very end of their life. So the the CO habit dream is to work off of the model of the suite mattion with an integrated support model, but to go a step further, where the support will be on site 24 hours for a portion of the suites and of the people who live there, and that some of the services that are available and needed by the people with disabilities would also be accessible and open to the people the rest of the people In the building, you know, supporting that integration and community that we really want to see. And so some examples of that would be food services, similar to what you might see in a in a 55 plus model, although you wouldn't have to be 55 plus to live here, and it wouldn't be a mandatory mail package. And then housekeeping would be another, you know, sort of a la carte option. And I think the goal is to work really hard on, you know, what you can sort of see, like, there's, there's a bit of a movement towards intentional community. And, you know, early in my life, at St amont, I was able to take some training from David potanyak, who's a disability advocate, and he said, you know, people who have disability are not sick from their disability. They're sick from loneliness. And I think there's a loneliness crisis in our community that's been, you know, we're all well aware of that. It's documented. And I think that people with disabilities are not the only ones who are sick from loneliness. I think that it's pervasive. And so what we're hoping to attract in the rest of the suites are other people who are looking for community and somewhere to belong, and that will be the goal, ultimately, of this project.

Stuart Murray  17:15  
Yeah, that's Jen. It's it kind of gives me goosebumps when you're talking about it for two reasons. One is, it's such a great project, and you're the two of you are so passionate about it, with you and your teams, which is so amazing. As I said at the outset, you're all about solutions, and I think that it's just music to so many people's ears. The second part, you know, is the issue around actually understanding what care models should look like, if you look about some of these systemic issues that we deal with today. And, you know, I've just sort of just take a small opening of brackets here for a second and just say you mentioned the word building code, a Canada's building code. And you know, my experience, firsthand of that is when I was president CEO, the inaugural Presidency of the Canadian Museum of human rights. And that is a very complex building. I mean, we did a lot of work for accessibility, and at one point, when it opened, we were deemed to be one of the most accessible cultural buildings in the world, cultural buildings. And you know, you sort of think, okay, let's just take a moment and thank those that taught us that we It wasn't us we learned from those with disabilities that we just tried to open our ears. But the point is, is that, rather than congratulatory, just saying, I hope that the next building, cultural building, or any building, is better than the one that we just built. And I'll just give you a quick example. We were, I think that building, you know, it has a number of different levels, seven levels, and it's very complex building to navigate. But if we were initially told that if we have two accessible washrooms, that we would need the building code, so you're going along until you realize, and somebody just makes a pause and says, Wait a minute, if we built follow the building code and have two accessible washrooms in this very complex building, there isn't a public relations firm in the world that would able explain why it is we followed the building code, but somebody in a chair had not to navigate what they went through to get to a washroom. So, you know, I would just say this podcast is not about building codes, but I hopefully we can start, because I hear this time and time again. You know, I did a podcast with a gentleman who's in a chair, who every time he travels to Toronto, they ruin his chair, but he said they're able to travel their transport horses, but they can't transport his personal chair. So not building codes, but it's it's really what the two of you are doing to your organizations is you're giving a sense of voice and a sense of action to people who just normally are just on the outskirts. They just aren't quite always there. So So Jen to you with what you're doing. And do you see this as a an opportunity to advance this kind of model, this work model that you're doing to other organizations or to the government, or to sort of make this not just a one off?

Jennifer Rodrigue  20:13  
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it to your point on the building code. And I won't, I won't, you know, keep, keep harping on it. But I think, you know, in partnership with Aristo compassion network, who are, like really, really smart people who have done this kind of work before, in our early conversations, when we were exploring this, there was they kept having the question, like, can't we just do a pilot within a building that already exists? Because that's what the real big complicating factor of this service model, is the building having to build a whole new, brand new apartment block. And you know, yeah, we would love to do it in a building that already exists, but there we can't find a building that has the right accessibility. And so that is a real part of frustration for us, is every time. And there's so many new apartment blocks and condominiums being built right now, and none of them will work for this type of service going forward. And my one of my hopes and dreams, I have many, but one of them is that this project will shift that for new builds, I understand that retrofitting is really difficult and expensive, and that's not what necessarily what we're looking for. But I would love that every new build is accessible, so that anybody can live there, whether or not there's a service included or not. But it just will actually open up the world for people to have choice where they live, in terms of, you know, also, sort of changing being a model that will be able to be replicated that also, that is like dream number two. And I think that, you know, segregation in our society, like my hope would be that we would never segregate people again. Segregation, really, you know, reinforces inequity and discrimination and stereotypes and bias and it it just increases the disparity in access to recreation, to social networks to employment opportunities, and it has, you know, significant effects on our emotional and and our physical health. And I also come from the experience like many of us do. Of you know, having had a parent who, you know, received services in a personal care home, and you know, received great services for what a personal care home is. But my the brain that I have and the vision that I see is, why are we segregating older people in these buildings and in institutions like institutional models have been proven not to be good for people, and yet we've still decided that they are okay for our older population. And I just feel like, you know, we're now working on these, you know, person directed living in different models, to bring in daycares and to bring in schools and to have all these different parts of of our community come into the personal care home, and it's like, well, maybe we are doing that backwards. Maybe we should never build another personal care home, and we should just be building accessible buildings where services can come in and people can be surrounded by their family and community in a natural way,

Stuart Murray  23:27  
right? You know, Jen, stop making common sense, will you? I mean, just yeah, you know, I mean, and I say that, not, not not to be, not to be humorous, but I, but I would say that, you know, we look at law, all these systemic issues that we deal with. And, you know, I just have to say that, you know, so often it seems that when there is a budget put together for a project, that that budget rests on the basis that whatever the project may be, that the issue of accessibility starts to become obvious to what the the this project is about. But you know, because just the way that we are systemically trained, and the way that the world is going, unfortunately, is that that becomes an add on to the budget, as opposed to a build in the budget. And now all of a sudden, you know, my my experience, and both of you are way more experienced than I am, and in real time, is that you know now that you're talking about accessibility, and I should just sort of pause and say, one of the reasons that the cmhr, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, was to be able to be so accessible, was simply because we were a new build. We weren't refurbished. And so just to put that into perspective, we were a new build and we were able to do that, but so often you get a budget, and then you realize some of these other additional elements that sort of humanize a building by making it accessible start to become an additional budget item. And so, you know, we need to find a way to take money as not the issue. You. But humanity, you know, what is the human rights element to this? How do you sort of look at, how do you make this? Because the element is the three of us on this podcast, and all the people listening, one way or another, will be touched with exactly what it is you're trying to do as we age out or as we, you know, you know, get get involved in different ways. So, So Dan, you know, over to to you for a second. You know you're you've been so compassionate about this. I mean, we've had many conversations about your your your ability to bring a compassion network to what it is that we do in the City of Winnipeg and beyond. Do you see this as a way to start getting, you know, governments and other private sector organizations who are involved in housing to start saying, this is an opportunity for us to learn and do something different than the way perhaps we've done it in the past. To Jen's point, as we see all of these high rises being built today, do you see an opportunity from an education standpoint, to bring people, other people, along with the journey that you and Jen are

Dan Lussier  26:06  
involved in. Yeah, I think so, Stuart, I think this is this. You know, whatever we learn here is something that's exportable and shareable. But I'm going to take a different approach to that, and maybe start by saying Stuart, I want to acknowledge all the various voices that have come before us, all the organizations that are actually doing good work now. They're already doing good work in this area. They've been organizations voices long before RCN and this project around the need for housing, different types of housing accessibility. I just think those voices are getting louder, and I think that's a good thing, and that will, that will that will help change happen, sir, these conversations, the passion you get out of organizations like CO habit and if RCN can play a role, and we love playing that side, seat role, just to bring people together, just to say we're going to dream together and bring forward some of these ideas and push these issues. So I think this is a demonstration project that can get people to think differently. Go back on the conversation around accessibility. To your point too, Stuart, as you learned through the Human Rights Museum build, I can tell you, just on this project, we're already learning and so, so, so thankful we got a we got a partner like cohabit that are pushing us sure there's a CSA standards. And I know we go out, you know, we don't want to talk about coded standards. We need to talk about these things. They're important. They're very important for us to talk about. And when we sat down, as Jen said, Through this experience, you know, Cohab and saying, Sure, there's these standards, but we should think about going further. And so we need to. So it's these types of projects that, if we can all push ourselves to go just that little bit further, then then we're going to have some continued conversations and hopefully demonstrate in real life, because that's what people want to see, real life, that changes in the lives of people that are actually going to be be in these, you know, be able to live in these environments, right? Yeah, so, you know, Stuart, I think, in general, and maybe, you know, depends on the bed, and I'm trying not to sound too motherhood and apple pie, but generally, I'm optimistic, because I do think people are listening. People are people are people are trying things. And at the end of the day, you know what government other agencies, we're going to have to transform. We're going to have to transform. We've talked about segregation, Stuart, your point about long term care, like we need to do better. We need everybody needs to new. Everybody knows we need to do better. And so what's the next evolution? What's the next evolution and transformation in how we're going to care for our elderly and people with less abilities and all this stuff? So, Stuart, I think, I think change is possible, and in some small way, this project, I think, will shift the conversation, we

Stuart Murray  28:59  
hope. And I would just say, you know, Dan, to your comment that that when we look at some of these projects, you know? And I just, again, I'm just going to pivot to the code, building code, for a second. Yes, don't dwell, but, but to make a point that you know, you have to wonder, when are they going to start when they look at rebranding or redoing the building code, where they're going to bring humans that have different perspectives of how their lives are lived, if they're in a chair, if they have sight issues, hearing issues. So you know, when you talk about building code to have those voices or those you know those people who are involved in that at the table, presumably, you know some of these conversations will become more just rote. You're just what we talk about simply because it's baked into everything we do. So you know that's, that's a that's a hope that the three of us shared. Let me just ask who came to who on on making this project to come together? Which organization approached? Which organization?

Dan Lussier  29:57  
Great question. Jen, why? I can't even remember.

Jennifer Rodrigue  30:03  
Well, I feel like Margie approached you first for some support, but not necessarily to partner on the project. And then I think, as we I mean, it is a compassion network you need to know Stuart has, is really backing cohabit in a significant way right now. And I think it was once we started working together in that capacity that we started to dream a little bit about what we could do as a first step. And that's, I think, when you guys committed to helping us with the with the pilot and the demonstration project.

Dan Lussier  30:36  
Yeah, Stuart, we we knew Margie and her team were on to something. Obviously, that's why we're here today. This is an important piece for many people in our community. So we got behind supporting a little bit of capacity building for cohabit as it was, trying to bring this vision kind of to life, and then just through that relationship, as you know Stuart, everything is relational, in relationships and small people getting together, and that's how things happen. Then. Then conversations, you know, began to get a little deeper. We explored the lysette Marion project. We introduced that project to margin your team, and then one thing led to another, and off we go. I have to underscore, this is not this. This particular project is not possible without the City of Winnipeg and them putting up parcels of land in the city specifically for development for affordable housing. Stuart, the numbers on these types of projects are so difficult to make work so you got a sustainable organization in the end that it doesn't happen if you can't get contributions, like land, like some capital infusions, like low interest rates, all things that various levels of government can bring to the table, right? So I want to shout out to the city, and I'm sensing, you know, for most levels of government, they're trying to bring what they can to the table, and, more importantly, coordinate break down some silos to see how, you know, we can combine efforts here for these types of projects to happen. So, so there you

Stuart Murray  32:13  
go. Yeah, no one I was going to ask that you kind of answered a question I was thinking about Dan, because, you know, there's a lot of moving parts to make this happen. I mean, you need leadership. We need organization, you need finance, but you need, you need land to build upon. And you know, if, if you don't have a willing partner that comes forward with that, if that becomes part of your initial budget, it may or may not be a make or break for the whole project, right? So 100% you're the you know, cohabit and and, RCN, you're not developers by nature. I mean, you're not land developers. So, you know, to have the city come forward, I think that's great Not, not to look slow shade on the city in any way, shape or form. Dan, but you know, one of the things I would think would be very important is location of where some of these opportunities are, simply because, if people need transit to be to, you know, to sort of go to and from, is that something at all that is part of the conversation?

Dan Lussier  33:09  
Well, it certainly was in this case, in wanting to collaborate with cohabit, we had began a process to start identifying, well, where is that land? And we had access to several opportunities. And each opportunity, I think, Jen, we reached out to cohabit to make sure cohabit went and saw these parcels and told us whether they thought they would be appropriate for the vision of the project. And so in this particular case, Jen, I do recall reaching out to cohabit. It's a beautiful piece of property in st Boniface. I think it's close to a lot of different amenities, and I think it's a good fit. But Jen, maybe that's a story for you to tell, rather than me.

Jennifer Rodrigue  33:53  
Yeah, I think the location is really important, especially for the population that we're serving. For those reasons that you talked about Stuart is access to transit is important, not only for the people with disabilities that will live in the building, but support workers who will be a big part of this equation, are low low paid in our province, and often rely on transit to get to and from work as well. So that's definitely important. And the other piece of this puzzle for the pilot project that we didn't yet talk about is the goal is to support ACCION Margaret, it Saint Boniface, who currently has quite a number of people who are younger than 65 and who have disability and live there, who you know are living there, maybe because they made that choice and they want to, or maybe because there wasn't any other choices available to them. So that will be the population that we're looking to support to de institutionalize if that, if they choose and. And so having proximity to axiomagnet st Boniface and the community that those people are used to and familiar with, and also a bilingual milieu, certainly axiomagad at St Boniface is a bilingual service provider. And so that will be important for us as well as we move forward with this

Dan Lussier  35:19  
project. And in addition Stuart, I would just add on the Excel Margarita opportunity. If we're successful at getting this off the ground, a byproduct of that is to open up other opportunities for people who are aging, who need those those beds in our system, right? So that's hopefully another benefit to the effort.

Stuart Murray  35:43  
And, I mean, it's such a great project, and where you're both coming from, you know, the one challenge, just as you sit here today and we talk about it, is there is limited space, right? I mean, you know, you got, I think, is it a five story? Just give you some perspective. Five story, 48

Dan Lussier  36:02  
unit, yeah, so this one right now, I think we're looking at 59 and probably 20 plus that are affordable. But I'm hesitant Stuart, you know, to land on it, because we still have more information coming from the city on the actual rezoning of the property height, that kind of stuff, and that'll dictate, but we're for sure, going to hit 20, if not more affordable units within this project, five, six stories perhaps. But again, lots more information for us to sift through before we can land on on precision, with any precision.

Stuart Murray  36:38  
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Janet, just from cohabit standpoint, making sure that all these rooms are accessible are the ones that you've designated to be accessible. You know, from this model, I do you work with an architect to do that, or do you just have through cohabit enough experience that you understand what the means are?

Jennifer Rodrigue  36:57  
So there's definitely a consultation process. Our architect that we're working with is very familiar and is approaching it beautifully. From an accessibility perspective, we're working with the Canadian accessibility standards, rather than the Manitoba standards. The Canadian standards were developed with significant guidance from accessibility experts as well as people with lived experience of disability. But then we were also, we have a group of people with lived experience of disability within our own network, and who are interested in living at co habit that are also consulting on the project, along with we've got some accessibility experts like occupational therapy sort of background, supporting the project as well. From design perspective,

Stuart Murray  37:44  
yeah, and that's, that's fantastic to have, you know, lived experience. You can't, you can't beat it. So Jen from, from CO habits perspective, you know, how does this sort of broaden your vision, as it sort of deals with, you know, those people who are dealing with poverty, or, you know, I won't stay on house. That's a kind of a different conversation. But for those people that are, you know, dealing with poverty and and housing insecurity, talk about CO habits, vision for that,

Jennifer Rodrigue  38:15  
yeah, I think that, I mean, poverty is really complex, right? And I think that there is a significant part of our population that struggles or is affected by poverty, who does also experience disability. And so part of what I see in the future, from a cohabit perspective, is right now, we have to be quite clear on who would be eligible to be supported within cohabit and again, when we go back to those systems and and how they kind of are a little bit difficult for us to work within. Right now, our systems are very based on diagnosis. You know, if you're diagnosed XYZ, you qualify for ABC, if you're diagnosed with this, then you'd qualify for this. And I think that's where, if we can prove this model and start looking at what that what the service funding looks like based on need, we could potentially, in the future, down the road, expand who fits into that service model. It doesn't necessarily need to be people with profound physical disability. It could be a combination of people who are affected by poverty, affected by disability, and would really benefit and thrive from that kind of inclusive and intentional community. So I think that there's a lot of opportunity in the future to start looking at people and what they need and where they would thrive, rather than looking at diagnosis and sticking. Them into a box of service.

Stuart Murray  40:03  
And that's really, you know, one of the things that I've learned, there's so many educators and advocates on this podcast, Jen, is exactly what you've just referenced, and that is this whole issue around systemic change. How do we look at sort of this, this notion that we have to rethink and relearn and and make this kind of more of a human conversation, versus it's how we've always done it, for whatever reason. And you know that's a big move and, and you know, for for what you and your team at cohabit are doing again, you know the reality is that it's it's not about changing the world tomorrow, it's about doing what you can do today, and you're doing that. And you know, the more voices and Dan you made this comment and that, you know, there are good organizations out there doing good work. And you know, we need to ensure that we keep create, create lots of opportunities for those voices to be heard, because it's a success story. And if it, if it happens in st Boniface, it happens in Winnipeg, it can happen anywhere in the world, you know, which is, which is really kind of where it goes. Dan, I wanted to ask you, you know, when you started out as the CEO, which is now RC RCN, visual compassion network, did you ever see yourself and the organization getting involved in this kind of vision, as you're doing with will Havoc right now? Yeah, that's an interesting question. I think Stuart, the organization itself, evolved quite, quite a bit. When I got there, it was very much focused on what was in terms of the network organizations, our responsibility for those network organizations, how to support them.

Dan Lussier  41:39  
But I would say the past maybe six, seven years, the board was quite intent on, hey, wait a minute like that. You know, we too can't get caught on what was and, you know, is this going to be forever? And where are those new needs today? And that was the pivot that allowed us to get out and dream. And I think, if anything, Stuart as an organization, it freed us to walk in community, to meet different organizations that are doing different things, and then again, look for that way to be supportive. How do we be supportive? We don't want to get in the way. We just want to be kind of a catalyst. And there's so many different people with different ideas that are new, that are refreshing, that are transformative, including cohabit what ought we do to be in that space with them? And to your point, Stuart, like you know people, people are looking for change, and that change can only happen if you create space for it to happen. And if anything, I think what we're trying to do is create that space, invite people to dare to dream, and then roll up our sleeves to see. How do we make it happen? Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but that was a big pivot for the organization, is to say, hey, we too, have a role to play in community. Let's let's get involved. And so that's a little bit of the story. So at the beginning, no certainly happy we got there, because there's lots to do. And like I said, lots of different organizations outside of our network are trying to do some real impressive things to support in different ways, the needs of our community, and we want to be part of that conversation.

Stuart Murray  43:25  
And you are in more ways than one. So you know, appreciate, appreciate that explanation. Dan Jen from, from your perspective, you know, co habit, you you know, you the what you explained at the outset about what, makes you go, what drives you? How do you see this particular project in enhancing the vision of what cohabit really is all about?

Jennifer Rodrigue  43:55  
Oh, this, you know, cohabit, I don't think would be able to continue to move forward at the pace it has, without this project and without the the support of reso compassion network. I mean, it's one thing to have an idea and it's one thing to build the service model, but when you need to also build a building, you need really strong, brave, courageous partners who are willing to take a chance on you and those ideas, and who are equally passionate about the vision and the future that can be. And so without Louis au compassion network, and without this demonstration project, I think that we would be, you know, still searching for that brave partner who would help us build that initial, that initial building. So I mean this partnership and this project is really everything to cohabit to be able to mobilize the dream

Stuart Murray  44:59  
and I need to do. The beautiful thing about partnership, it just it, you know, it's all about bringing people together, right? I mean, just on the very, very nature of what that word says. So, you know, the both of you have done that. Listen to Jennifer Rodrigue and Dan Lucy. Thank you so much for joining before we kind of tip the hourglass in the sands run out on on the podcast. I just want to ask each one of you, you know, is there, is there a question? And I'll say the same thing to to I'll start with you, Jen, or go to you, Dan, next. But is there a question, when you were thinking about jumping onto this podcast, that that you were hoping that I was going to ask you, that I didn't ask you, is there something you would like to talk about that perhaps I haven't asked you on the project.

Jennifer Rodrigue  45:43  
Oh, that's such a good question. Um,

Stuart Murray  45:53  
I know you love I don't talking about it and, and, you know, and you've done a great job. I just want to make sure, if there's something that you know, that perhaps we want to I think,

Jennifer Rodrigue  46:02  
yeah, one of the things that was in your questionnaire, your pre interview questionnaire, was, you know, is, do you have a suggestion of where people could learn more? And I would just really love for people to look outside of their their their usual network, and see the people who have a disability, who are around them, and to connect and expand, and not even just people with disabilities, just connect and expand your network and get to know people who are different from you, because I think that's a gift and and you'll be surprised. And then the other thing is, is I just would love for people to become a little bit more aware of accessibility. And, you know, it's, it's kind of like that bell that once you, once you ring it, you can't unring it. And so I would, I would hope that after, you know, hearing this podcast, when you drive around a new neighborhood, look to see whether or not, if you if you lived your life in a wheelchair, if you could get into someone's house, could you visit that community center? You know, would you be able to be a part of somebody's wedding or a social given the location that it's in? And just start to think about life from that perspective, because it certainly is a lot of people that it affects who we're excluding, the way our community is built right now.

Stuart Murray  47:25  
Yeah, and I, again, I don't get me on a soapbox on this, Jen, but I, you know, it's just small things like, you know when, when we're building buildings, and you know, we gotta build that's a fact of light. But when you build buildings, typically what they do is they take over a sidewalk on the construction piece, and so that sidewalk becomes, you know, and you can't, can't go on that sidewalk. Well, you know, for those of us that know about mobiles, you go across the street, away you go. But if you're in a chair, you know, like, there's, what's the thought about somebody in a chair? It's not just as simple as we always say, well, they can cross. Yes, they can cost where things are, for sure, that's possible, but, but, you know, just just again, just humanize the conversation, right? I mean, just Yeah, right. So absolutely yeah, no, I agree with you. I think that putting those lens on and looking at it and just from a perspective of of somebody who may be in a chair just everyday living, would be a good opportunity for all of us to experience. So thank you for sharing that. Appreciate that. Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Yeah, thank you so Dan. Just to you for any thought, any question that, that I didn't

Dan Lussier  48:36  
maybe I'll try to do this quickly for you, Stuart. The first is, I just want to thank you, Stuart, for the work you've always done in community, but particularly these podcasts and the conversations you're hosting. I think you know, for all interested in a better world, for everybody, you're certainly doing a big part by bringing people together and sharing these stories and talking about it so clues to you, and thank you for all that, and much, much more that I'm sure we can draw a list on. I don't have anything particularly to add, or wish you asked a question, but you did bring up something along this conversation that I hope you might take up the challenge on to think through a it was, it was a system related question. And I'm going to say this unskillfully Stuart, because it's something that I've been struggling with myself. I just don't think incremental change anymore is what we need. And yet, because we've built all these structures, which I call structures, by the way, that become systems very difficult for us to unwind from them. And I'm really concerned that the magnitude of the challenges we face as a community that will all impact human rights at a large level, it's our economy that's not firing on all cylinders for everybody we talk about, the social dispute. Rarities, health inequities, so much more work we need to do on reconciliation, our environment, all these issues, there's cracks in everything. And although I'm a very optimistic person, I just don't think incremental change is possible for what's in front of us. And so that means the systems need to find ways to become more malleable and more comfortable at risk, and that means our governments and somewhere, and I know it's a very difficult conversation, Stuart, we need to have a conversation around resources and whether we view this world as scarce, which is always the same thing, don't try new things. We don't have the money. Don't come up with new ideas. We can't do that. We have money, whatever, or is there abundance? And I view the latter, of course, but that requires us to think differently about resources. And I don't want to get into conversational taxation, levels of taxation, but we have to have a grown up conversation as community now, because I don't think incrementalism. If I got that butchered that wrong. I told you I'd do that and skillfully it. The pace of things and transformation required and testing new ideas is, is it needs to get sped up. And I don't know where that conversation fits to it, but you hit on it, and I don't have solutions. But I know there's many, many many people thinking about this, and lots of people writing about it, and maybe Manitoba can be a place that's bold enough right to rapidly change, right, if that's even the right word, or to evolve. Maybe I don't know that I went along a little too long. Harry Stuart,

Stuart Murray  51:39  
that's it on, yeah. And it's, you know, the great part about the answers that both you gave is, you know, they're all, they're all from the heart. They're all, you know, it's what you believe, it's what you're passionate about. And you know, that's one of the reasons why I think that Winnipeg will continue with all its challenges like any urban, you know, city has, but you know, with people like you and organizations like you and others. Dan, that you mentioned at the outset, you know, we are working to make this a city that we're proud of and that we want to call home, and that we want it to be accessible for people. And you know, every day we wake up, it's not about nirvana. It's about how can we make change? How can we offer you know, somebody mentioned the comment, don't, don't take your dreams to the grave, you know, and neither of you are doing that. You're dreaming it so. So to both of you, Dan Lussier, the CEO of racial compassion network, and Jennifer rudweek from cohabit Thanks for finding some time to jump on to this humans on rights podcast. I appreciate both of you, your organizations and all the great work you do.

Jennifer Rodrigue  52:38  
Thank you. Thanks so much.

Matt Cundill  52:42  
Thanks for listening to humans on rights. A transcript of this episode is available by clicking the link in the show notes of this episode. Humans on rights is recorded and hosted by Stuart Murray, social media marketing by Buffy Davey, music by Doug Edmond. For more, go to human rights hub.ca produced and distributed by the sound off media company you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai