Wil Andruschak

Debbie Johnston, executive director of Calgary Society of Community Opportunities, says the city’s tight rental market is threatening smaller non-profit organizations

Nestled in a new facility in northeast Calgary, Debbie Johnston was surprised by how difficult it was to find another location for her agency, despite being aware of the city’s tight rental market. “I was in shock,” says Johnston, executive director of the Calgary Society of Community Opportunities (CSCO). “It’s like applying for a job with 100 other applicants. Competition for space is pretty fierce.”

For smaller non-profit organizations, this situation is becoming all too common in Calgary’s roaring economy, as agencies like the CSCO are threatened with instability of services and homelessness due to the city’s space dilemma.

Last year, the CSCO, which provides day programs for developmentally disabled adults, found itself nearing the end of its lease with a landlord refusing an automatic renewal. In need of a new residential facility and saddled with an increased rental rate of $12 per square foot, Johnston states the spaces available were on the outskirts of town and presented a commuting problem for clients.

“We were in the southeast before and the rents down there, we couldn’t manage it,” says Johnston. “We weren’t a fit for every area, and yet we were being shown warehouse space because of the size of the building that we needed and the accessibility. So it was pretty tough.”

Fortunately, the agency found a property on 18th Street N.E. that fit its specifications and moved in last May. CSCO chairman Myles Thurlow credits his staff’s hard work in finding the new facility and moving with little disruption to its day programs.

Despite some traffic issues at the new location due to the non-stop flow of taxis and HandiBuses, Thurlow is pleased with the facility and shudders at the alternative. “Our fallback situation was a concrete block warehouse that we would have been able to start up in and remodel as we went,” she says.

“It would have restricted services and would not have given us a very good working area. It would have been more in the industrial district closer to the airport. All through that area there are industrial warehouses that could be developed, but it could have restricted our programs with the extra money required to develop it.”

One upside to the situation is that the growing concern among non-profit agencies has caught the attention of the Calgary Chamber of Voluntary Organizations.

CCVO president Katherine van Kooy says the chamber is looking at highlighting the space problem to city council. It is currently conducting a survey — of which operating expenses is one of the issues addressed — of its members.

“People have raised concerns about what’s happening in terms of the availability of space, or it may not necessarily be affecting them immediately,” says van Kooy. “But certainly we’ve had members who’ve said, ‘We’re lucky, we’ve just signed our lease that covers us for the next four or five years but, given current trends and conditions, we have no idea, when that lease expires, where we would go.’”

While the CCVO’s primary purpose is to provide research and education on issues of concern in the voluntary sector, van Kooy welcomes any contact from non-profit organizations facing homelessness in an effort to better understand the issue.

“It’s important for us also to know the stories and the situations,” she says. “We can start keeping track of who they are and what the issue is so we can start to get some sense in terms of the extent and the depths of the problem.”

Until then, it’s business as usual for Thurlow and his staff. The CSCO has applied to city council for property tax exemption and is hoping for additional funding to cover its renovations. Counting preparation, patience and a sympathetic real estate agent as vital in finding a new location, Thurlow also adds one key bit of advice for non-profit organizations on the move. He says the biggest thing is keeping the clients and staff informed while maintaining morale. If they don’t like the new facility, this defeats the purpose of providing a comfortable area and atmosphere for the organization’s programs.