It’s a story that starts so well: A couple grows old together in Strathcona county over 30 years. But in their 70s, the husband develops Alzheimer’s disease and requires housing in a long-term care facility. The wife has not been able to find affordable care to allow them to stay together, and may have to leave the county in order to get it. But that means she’ll be away from her support network and unable to easily visit her husband.
It becomes a heart-breaking story about housing affordability which now affects one in 10 homeowners and nearly two in five renters, according to Kristen Flath, supervisor of social policy and innovation for Strathcona county, who helped develop the region’s Housing Affordability Strategy.
Approved by Strathcona county council in April of 2024, the strategy aims to improve housing affordability in a county where nearly 15 per cent of households spend 30 per cent or more of household income on shelter costs.
As of October 2023, Strathcona county’s primary rental apartment rates (for privately initiated rental structures) were one of the highest in the Edmonton Metropolitan Region.
Growing inflation, decreasing income for residents, and a lack of diverse housing options have made it difficult for many residents to afford housing.
Many aging people, like that couple, are struggling. The strategy points out that in 2022, 14 per cent of seniors in Sherwood Park received the Alberta Seniors Benefit, indicating a significant portion of the county’s seniors experience low income.
But, Flath says, challenges with housing affordability extend into many demographics — the idea that the issue only affects a small portion of the population is a myth.
“We’re seeing it for young adults that are looking to live on their own for the first time. We’re seeing it for older adults who are looking again to downsize into something that’s more affordable,” says Flath. “We’re really seeing it in a lot of different populations … something they haven’t faced in the same way before.”
Flath worked on the strategy as part of her regular job with family and community services, which involved improving accessibility and the supports that promote healthy aging. Through that work, the team realized these issues intersect — members of the disability community and aging populations are particularly affected by a lack of affordable housing options.
The team then brought that accessibility work into the strategy to show a growing need for more options for a disabled population that is predicted to continue growing. The 2022 Canadian Survey on Disability found that about 27 per cent of Canadians aged 15 years and older had one or more disabilities, double since 2012.
“Affordable and attainable housing is really a foundation in a community,” says Flath. “If you want to be a community that attracts young families, if you want to be a community that is able to retain residents entering those later stages of their lives, or if you want to keep people who are just starting out with a first job — all that requires housing that people can access and afford.”
Deanna Cambridge, co-ordinator of long range planning for Strathcona county, says the strategy addresses affordability, housing suitability and diversity by reducing barriers to affordable housing through reforms while increasing diversity through municipal policies, processes and tools. Reforms increase, for example, homeowners’ options to build secondary suites, or garden suites. They also increase the number of mixed-use developments on county lands.
“If we can open up those opportunities and build those kinds of units, that should both increase options and also take some strain off of other supportive housing systems,” says Cambridge.
While there are still not enough affordable housing options in the county, Cambridge says many of the new communities focus on density, which helps.
The northeast has Cambrian, for example, a new community with a wide range of housing options not as common in older neighbourhoods where single-family dwellings are the standard.
“Sherwood Park has faced limited land development in recent years due to infrastructure and overpass construction, restricting the available supply of land and diverse housing options,” says Matthew Lecky, vice-president of San Rufo Homes, one of the builders of Cambrian. “Cambrian addresses this by offering a broad range of housing types, including street-oriented townhomes, duplexes, rear-laned single-family homes, front-drive, zero lot lines and traditional front-garage homes — ensuring more price points for families looking to move to the area.”
He points out that labour shortages, increasing material costs and off-site levies have driven up construction costs. These additional costs make it that much more difficult for people to buy homes. But new developers, says Lecky, aim to be as efficient with land use as possible and offer many diverse options.
Diversity in housing leads to diversity in community members, and that’s the goal.
This article appears in the April 2025 issue of Edify
