West Broadway residents keen to join community land grant development

CTV’s Joseph Bernacki takes a closer look at how a Winnipeg neighbourhood is implementing a community land trust for shared homeownership.

Affordable homeownership may soon be in reach for Winnipeg’s West Broadway neighbourhood with community ownership top of mind.

“I think the idea of having community sort of taking the lead when it comes to how these buildings are taken care of maintained,” said Avery Helm, a West Broadway resident, on Monday.

In the time Helm has lived in the neighbourhood, the West Broadway Community Organization (WBCO) has been hard at work acquiring the city’s only community land trust.

“The main goal is to establish a form of community ownership of land that tries to preserve that land as a community amenity for long-term or forever,” said Stefan Hodges, WBCO housing co-ordinator.

The community land trust places ownership and responsibility on the part of the community, rather than an individual person or business.

Hodges said years of his organization setting aside funding have allowed them to gather enough money to buy their first property. They expect to buy in the coming months.

Helm said the idea is enticing as she lives in a rental heritage building.

“Sometimes it starts to get kind of rundown and trying to get the landlords to come in and do fixes can take weeks, maybe months,” she said.

Hodges said 93 per cent of people living in the neighbourhood are renters. He said the WBCO has their eye on a 10-to-15-unit apartment block to start.

“It feels like a more manageable size to start with, so that we can do it in a good way,” Hodges said.

He said the community land trust will create stability as properties will be under the market rate, meaning they won’t turn over so quickly, creating long-term residents.

According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, one-bedroom apartments in West Broadway were going for $1,070 per month as of October 2025. For two bedrooms, that number jumps up to $1,325.

For the City of Winnipeg median rates, one-bedroom apartments were going for $1,210 per month, while two bedrooms were going for $1,570.

Katherine Carruthers has lived in Westminster Housing Co-Op for more than 20 years. She said you don’t have to look far to see the generational appeal this type of community ownership would bring.

Carruthers said she would seriously consider moving to this type of building in a heartbeat.

“Five minutes from now, that’s how I’m looking at it,” Carruthers said.

“I’m looking at it as a future for people I know who will be challenged forever for affordable housing.”

Hodges said this isn’t the first time a community land grant was attempted to thrive in West Broadway. In the early 2000s, the West Broadway Development Corporation tried a similar approach that fizzled out.

“We’re coming at it for different reasons than we were 25 years ago,” he said.

“The neighbourhood is just as collaborative and mobilized as it was back then. We’re seeing a lot of rent increases in the neighbourhood and that’s been the case for 10 years at least. It’s less about trying to revitalize the neighbourhood, it’s more about trying to protect what we have.”