Affordable Housing

In late 2019, the members and leadership at Historic St. Paul’s, began an exercise to explore how our assets, including the building and property, could be better utilized to serve our members and our community. This included ideas that could expand our existing programs, such as our well-known Community Cupboard; which for many years now has served hundreds of families a week during the Fall and Winter seasons, with pantry items and clothing.

This exploration quickly and decisively led us to Affordable Housing, both as an extension of our existing programs (providing food, clothing, and now housing), the huge & growing need in our community, the prime location of our congregation, and the hearts of our members to serve this need. There is a crisis of housing in our region, which is only increasing significantly with the current housing market and the recent pandemic. There are now well over 6,000+ families (10,000+ people) on the Region’s list in need of affordable housing, and it’s growing rapidly. Attaining affordable housing is especially challenging for seniors, with the population aged 65+ expected to more than double in the next 20 years.

We are therefore thrilled to announce that the members of Historic St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church have approved in principle, the development of an Affordable Housing Building for Seniors on our property. Our current plan is to build 57 affordable housing units, which although covers only a fraction of the need, we believe will be a great blessing to our community.

We want to extend our gratitude to our neighbours, community and all of you, for your openness and support of this great mission. During this process we would like to keep the lines of communication open and transparent with you.

Should you like to receive more information about of Affordable Housing Project, please use the contact feature below.

March 19, 2023 – Progress on our Affordable Housing Project continues. Funding agreements with the Region’s RFP and the Waterloo Region Community Foundation have been executed. Detailed design work continues, along with site plan work and lot severance planning.

June 4, 2023 - Work on our affordable development has been progressing at a busy pace, so many items on the go. We continue to move forward with design, working on initial permits, lot severance and heritage reviews.

September 25, 2023 - Our Chairman Josh Lavallee, had the opportunity to join The Mike Farwell Show on 570AM CityNews Kitchener, this afternoon to discuss with Mike our Affordable Housing development here at Historic St. Paul’s Lutheran Church.

If you would like to listen to a replay of the show, you can hit the link below. Select the show from Monday, September 25th, 2023, and Josh’s interview with Mike takes place approximately 1 hour and 26 minutes into the show recording.

June 23, 2024 - Some exciting news to share, we will begin some pre-construction activities on July 9th. These include relocation of some utilities and shoring up the office entrance and ramp area.

We have made considerable progress over the last few months, and have now reach conditional approval of financing with CMHC. We are in the final stages of building permit approval, with an expected construction start this summer.

Stay tuned for further announcements and details regarding our Ground Breaking Ceremony, and other activities. Thanks for your continued patience and interest in our project.

July 15, 2024 - Construction fencing is up and pre-construction activities have begun! It is exciting to see progress on site, as we get under way moving utilities and shoring up entrances in advance of main construction. As a reminder, we are now using our Construction Parking Plan, see here for full details.

August 9, 2024 - Pre-construction activities continue on site. Site fencing and the site construction office have been set up. Hydro services have been relocated, and gas lines should be finished their rerouting shortly. The site is currently being shored up in preparation for full construction work to begin.

August 22, 2024 - Our Ground Breaking Ceremony originally scheduled for Tuesday, August 27th, has been postponed. We will provide a further update on the new date, as soon as details are available. Thanks for your understanding.