Leveraging a Social Innovation Approach to Address Accessible & Inclusive Disability Housing in Edmonton
Background
Skills Society is a not-for-profit organization in Alberta started in the 1980s, when concerned parents sought to help their children with disabilities lead safe, dignified, and inclusive lives. Their work emerged as greater public consciousness grew around the horrors of systemic institutionalization and eugenics – common practices in Canada well into the 20th century.
Today Skills Society continues to serve individuals with developmental disabilities, survivors of brain injuries, as well as their families. By centering their work on ‘citizenship,’ they create space for those with disabilities to actively advocate for and express agency in their lives. People served by Skills Society are supported to pursue their interests and passions which might include things like poetry, gardening, or volunteering – activities easily overlooked by those of us unaware of the real accessibility barriers present in our communities.
Recognizing the complexity surrounding supporting the inclusion of people with disabilities, Skills Society intentionally started implementing social innovation practices during the 2010s to ‘help steward good ideas to emerge from anywhere within the organization’. This ‘baked-in’ culture of innovation has granted them coverage in the Stanford Social Innovation Review as well as in previous publications on ABSIConnect – ‘You Need This Box’ was conceived through Shift Lab 2.0, a social innovation lab affiliated with Skills Society!
Future of Home: Inclusive Housing Solutions Lab
Recently I was able to speak with Paige Reeves, Senior Leader of Research and Social Innovation at Skills Society and a steward of Action Lab. Having been drawn to the organization because of its approach to solving problems with community rather than for community, Paige was recently involved with stewarding the ‘Future of Home: Inclusive Housing Solutions Lab’, a collaborative project including voices from people with disabilities, Inclusion Alberta, Civada, and Homeward Trust.
The lab used the following question to guide their work:
“What might an affordable, accessible housing and support model that also supports the social inclusion and belonging of people with developmental disabilities look like?”
Adopting a ‘human-centred lab process’, the work followed a five-step process to ensure that recommended outcomes incorporated the following:
Bring diverse stakeholders together;
Deeply understand root causes;
Create solutions with, not for, people;
Implement small-scale tests to find what works; and
Move forward with ideas following community testing.
Reflecting on the nature of open-ended innovation labs clashing with traditional expectations by funders, Paige noted that Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation (CMHC) Solutions Labs was particularly open to social innovation approaches so the team could embrace complexity without committing to set outcomes. This allowed for authentic engagement with the community, especially in the ‘empathy’ stage where the team realized that they were not just concerned with physical houses; rather they were “prototyping a way of living”. By the time the project reached the prototype phase it became clear that the proposed housing models required fundamental shifts in the values and attitudes (or mental models) that participants held with regards to ‘inclusive housing’.
Community Concierge Prototype
The prototypes developed out of the Future of Home lab therefore emphasize the important role of ‘community’ in this conversation – perhaps not far from Skills Society’s general emphasis on ‘citizenship’. Affordances for shared community spaces, opportunities for spontaneity, and a shared social contract were identified as key characteristics of healthy community for those with and without developmental disabilities alike. In support of these findings an additional prototype that resulted directly through the lab was the novel concept of a ‘Community Concierge’.
This initiative is embodied by a paid community member within apartment complexes where both people with and without disability live, who is meant to coordinate community-building efforts for all residents while simultaneously supporting the inclusion of those with developmental disabilities. The community concierge was loosely prototyped in the lab process, and in looking for opportunities to mobilize the work within the community the team began a formal feasibility assessment with a business advisor to explore the replicability of what they had discovered.
The model continues to demonstrate promise as a scalable social enterprise in and of itself, which can be sold as an asset to property managers looking to offer more inclusionary housing models. Falling well outside the comfort zone of many not-for-profit organizations, Paige acknowledged the value in having the feasibility assessment done as an intermediary step bridging the gap between prototype and pilot project.
“We want this to be self-sustaining, and we don’t want it to be grant-dependent so it can have longevity and greater impact!”
Next Steps
When asked about issues that remain prevalent in the work conducted by Action Lab and Skills Society, Paige identified how funds are allocated to address social issues as needing additional attention. While they were able to find financial support to conduct the Future of Home lab and get to the prototype phase, it became more and more difficult to carry ideas forward to the implementation phase – the space “where change actually happens”. In consideration of alternative routes, it was found that start-up funding was also slightly out of reach due to the requirements for a comprehensive business plan; itself requiring substantial resources to complete.
Paige concluded with the desire that more recognition be placed on the work that happens between prototype and pilot project, and ensuring that the meaningful work being conducted in the lab space is supported throughout the journey – not just at the start.
Learn More
Interested in Skills Society, Action Lab, and social innovation as practiced in Edmonton? We’ve got you covered!
Check out the website for Skills Society.
Check out the website for the Action Lab, a social enterprise of Skills society.
Learn about the Future of Home: Inclusive Housing Solutions Lab with their preliminary report and a short documentary.
Check out Systemic Design eXchange (SDX), a community of practice stewarded by Action Lab