MAY 2025 facility and naming of spaces within the facility represent a potential opportunity for good fundraising. Sam has seen that strategy deployed successfully on previous capital projects. Additionally, THC has not given up on earning further capital project funding from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation or the federal government department of housing. Currently, the project hasn’t received any federal capital grant funding, so they are going to continue advocating for it. Any additional federal capital grant funding would be for the affordable housing units in the project and would reduce the amount of fundraising or project financing required. Ultimately, THC’s goal is to make this project a model, and to potentially replicate it in other communities and municipalities who are struggling with the same issues. The organization believes there are many communities like that – communities with aging populations and nowhere for them to go, with little hope of intervention from the private sector, because building seniors living accommodation in small towns is costly and not profitable. “What we’ve done is we’ve created a new model,” Sam explains. “We’ve created a not-for-profit which is 100 per cent wholly owned by the municipality. The municipality will be the custodian and owner of this facility well into the future.” Since the town isn’t necessarily trained in operating such a facility, they have teamed up with Covenant Health, a provider that has been involved in health care in Alberta for the better part of a century, at least. Due to their history in the region, they were the first company invited by THC to participate as a care and services partner. THC and Covenant Health now have a memorandum of understanding that they will manage and provide services for the facility, and THC will retain facility ownership and maintenance. Again, THC believes what they have accomplished with this project can be replicated throughout the province. Moving forward, they are excited to offer whatever help they can to see that happen. “Our future is to become a reliable, stable housing provider,” Sam says. “Having done it once, and based on two previous successful projects, we can do it again for other people. There are a lot of municipalities that have the same needs. We want to show them how we did it, and we want to help them learn how to do it. That’s the kind of future we see, rural communities coming together and helping each other achieve success.”
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