Episode 10: Leah Logan

In our final episode of Season 1, Adam sits down with  Leah Logan of Indwell. As Waterloo's regional manager for affordable housing developer Indwell, Leah has been working at many ends of the spectrum. From design and development to forging relationships with neighbourhoods and local residents, many of whom are not initially sold on the idea of affordable housing in their communities. 

Leah talks about the Indwell approach to people-centered development, and how they work to overcome the "Not in my backyard" or NIMBY attitudes of many of our neighbours who are resistant to the idea of affordable housing situated where they live.

Tenant # 1 [0:00]: Just because they're out on the street and homeless and don't have a job doesn't mean they're not human. They should have human rights where they have a place to live and have something to eat every day.  

Tenant # 2 [0:10]: The biggest thing is when you start losing yourself, you feel like you have no work, you have nothing to give back. You get deeper into your addictions and the more guilt you got since you're not around your family and it's getting worse.  

Tenant # 3 [0:20]: Affordable housing is so important. It's the basis to everything, having stability. And if you have stability, you're able to cope a lot better with COVID, mental health, addiction. Without affordable housing, without that stability, the rest of that is going to affect your life so much more.  

Tenant # 4 [0:39]: I've never been this well, I swear to goodness, in my entire life.  

Adam [1:09]: Hello everyone, and welcome back to Winter Is Coming. This is a podcast where we are asking how we go from housing crisis to housing justice. And what you just heard at the start of today's episode was the audio from Safe, a documentary film from John Butler. A documentary that features tenants of the Indwell affordable housing communities and their stories of being targeted by housing injustice, of living close to the streets and the hope that comes with supportive, permanent, affordable housing. And if you want to learn more about how you can support the documentary, how you can view that documentary, check out the details in the captions to this podcast or do a Google search for Safe documentary or search YouTube for Safe documentary and check it out there. We will have info in the description on how you can connect with screenings running until March 28. This is our 10th episode in our first season. It is also the season finale but we are excited to bring you more episodes in the future this spring. But for now, we're going to close off this first season as we continue to talk about how we go from housing crisis to housing justice. And when we say housing justice, what does it look like? Not just to get roofs over people's heads, not just for market real estate to be more affordable, not just to have more emergency shelters, but how can we take all those aspects and the many other nuances of housing and move towards a society that truly enshrines housing as a human right and how we can we have a society that lives out housing in a just way. So we are talking housing justice here. And particularly we're looking at the lens of what many people know on their maps as Waterloo Region. This is the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee, the Anishinaabe and neutral peoples, our Indigenous siblings, who for thousands of years stewarded this land and are still stewarding this land and with whom we have a lot to learn about what it looks like to take care of each other, to love our neighbour, to live in community and to make sure that no one is left out in the cold. We are joined this week by Leah Logan, a regional manager of Waterloo Region at Indwell. Indwell is a great organization that has been working with churches and community organizations and some of the producers behind this podcast. Trinity United Church, which is helping to bring you this podcast, has worked with Indwell in the past at going from learning how to support affordable housing, supportive housing and housing justice to taking action. And how do we actually move tangibly towards housing justice? So Indwell has been a key part of that fraternity and for many other churches and organizations. And I'm so excited to have Leah here with us. So thank you for joining us today, Leah. 

Leah [4:40]: Thanks for having me, Adam.  

Adam [4:43]: So, Leah, could you start by giving us a little background on you and your role at Indwell? What does Indwell do? What makes Indwell an organization that works in the housing sector? What makes Indwell unique? 

Leah [5:04]: Starting with a little about me, I've come from an international community-development background, and much of my work has been focused on how we foster community and create good places for people to live and thrive. And I happened upon Indwell eight years ago, actually, in Woodstock, Ontario, and heard about the work they were doing. It very much aligned with my values and my approach to how we support individuals. So I've had the pleasure of working with Indwell for eight years now. I’ve had the opportunity to meet so many wonderful tenants across Ontario, all of whom we support. And now I'm in Waterloo Region trying to develop as much hope and as many homes as possible as part of the organization. Indwell itself was born in the 1970s and it was actually one family that very much wanted housing, justice and to make an impact. They had a three bedroom apartment. They moved two of their kids into one room and welcomed somebody who was unsheltered and needed one-on-one support into their home. And that is how we were born. It was so successful, it was caring for somebody, it was ensuring that they felt the belonging as part of this family and that they had support around them so they could grow in their health and wellness. With that model, we were supported by the church community to grow into different apartments around Hamilton. And we continue to grow that model across Ontario in Hamilton, Norfolk, Mississauga, London, Woodstock, Chatham, St. Thomas, and now the Region of Waterloo, which is very exciting for us.  

Adam [7:11]: That's a great first foray into the story behind Indwell and a great example for many of the listeners including me who are not necessarily experts or professionals in the field, but who recognize a need, recognize that we have a problem in our cities in Ontario and in Canada with housing injustice and access to safe housing and community. And affordable housing and community. And the founders were regular people who saw that need and just wanted to say, “I want to start doing something.” And since then, over many, many years, it has grown and flourished as an organization. Indwell’s story is a great example for us in a sphere that so often seems grim and hopeless. To know we can make change and have an impact is something to grab on to so we don't get frozen by thinking the problem is too big or too sprawling.  

Leah [8:25]: For us as an organization, our vision is hope and homes for all. But we can't do that without our community. And you highlighted that we're in this region primarily because it was Trinity, it was St. Mark's Lutheran Church that said, what can we do with this space? How do we make that impact? And so it gave us the opportunity to come to Waterloo to make that impact, to build supportive housing for others. And that just demonstrates that it takes a village to do the work that we do.  

Adam [9:00]: Yeah, absolutely. For you, on a personal level, you shared a little bit about your background and how you found Indwell. But what was your introduction to affordable housing or housing justice or maybe the housing crisis itself? How did it first come to your attention?  

Leah [9:21]: Much of my work was in mental health and psycho-social support on an international scale. I was focused on Syrian refugees crossing the sea and being stuck at various borders. And how do we support individuals that are not housed, that do not belong in the location they are in? And how do we build that support network for individuals who continue to stay in crisis? That fueled my interest in ensuring that everyone has housing, that everyone has a right to belong somewhere. And that speaks to our human rights. When I came back to Canada we have many of the same situations here, we have individuals that are unsheltered, we have individuals that need that sense of belonging. And so we can work collectively. And that can be part of my mission, to ensure people have that opportunity. 

Adam [10:36]: Can you talk a little bit about how you've seen your work as a representative at Indwell and maybe the work of Indwell, as a whole? How has it changed since the pandemic? 

Leah [10:51]:  That's a great question, Adam, because what hasn't changed since the pandemic? One of the main components of our model is that we are going to provide support in-house, we are going to be present and we are going to be continuously present as we build rapport with our tenants. But further to that, we're fostering community. Many a time, I say we're not an apartment building, we are a community. And our tenants get to know that. They get to know that everybody living in their community, in their building, has an understanding of what the ebbs and flows of mental health and addiction are. And that creates grace, that creates openness to dialogue about the struggles that somebody is facing. But it also creates a safe place to build and foster community. So when COVID hit, we really had to re-navigate every essence of how we distributed and did that work. Our staff remained in the buildings to support our tenants, but it became very much one-on-one support. And we quickly realized that, yes, we can provide health support, yes, we can provide housing, but that connection is critical to everyone's health and wellness. And we all felt that through COVID at some point. And so, yes, we were ensuring that health needs were met, but we really focused on how we could create community while isolating at the same time. And that, quite frankly, was not an easy feat. So we looked at how our neighbors support each other by going grocery shopping for each other or we looked at creating—we have a harm reduction group. How do we do that with the COVID rules and regulations? So, yes, we can meet as a group of five at a six-foot distance. Let's find a space that allows for that. Let's create more of those meetings so that more people can participate but on different days. So it was just refiguring how we can continue to build that community.  

Adam [13:19]: The mental health and addiction piece is obviously huge because a lot of folks who live with those experiences are targeted by housing injustice and struggle in our current systems to have safe and sustained shelter and community. In the last decade especially, there has been a lot of attention on mental health and mental well being, which is great, and things like Bell Let’s Talk Day sweep the internet every year, and give a chance for people to share stories and to hopefully de-stigmatize the subject of mental health. But often that conversation is really refined and restricted to particular aspects of mental health and to folks able to afford an internet connection. They are the ones usually who have the privilege of being able to speak. And that leaves out our neighbors who struggle with housing and with finances. Can you talk about that mental health piece and how it is linked to housing and maybe to the work that Indwell does?  

Leah [15:06]: Everything we do in terms of our design is focusing on the community piece. What we're really trying to navigate is no-isolation for an individual, recognizing that isolation is detrimental to everyone's mental health. We design our apartments to meet the needs of our tenants. They have a safe place, they have their own place, but we have so many community spaces in our buildings, and that fosters the opportunity not to be isolated, to be part of community. Furthermore, much of our work is getting rid of the barriers that lead to isolation. And you named some of the technical difficulties we had during COVID to connect our tenants to the supports they needed. Very quickly, it was, how do we get the iPads operational? How do we do tech classes? Our tenants generally can't afford phones. How do we get mobile phones for our tenants to use? So it was a tech journey for us to ensure that those barriers were limited and our tenants still had that connection with different supports outside of their home. And that is the essence of our work. It's ensuring that isolation is not a component of our model in any way, that everyone is always feeling love, dignity and hope on a day-to-day basis without the stigma and without the barriers. We have people that might be struggling with something, but ultimately we're all just people trying to get by. So if we can support people and each other, then we're going to be better overall.  

Adam [17:11]: We've talked about this in a couple of other episodes. What you're saying is so conspicuous and visible for us in how we've seen the formation of different encampments over a number of years, and particularly over the last couple of years. The pull, the need for community is so real and is no different than what any of us feel who live with the privilege of access to safe shelter and to family and friend networks. It's what any of us would want. And so it's really beautiful to hear of the intentional focus on community and not just the brick and mortar, not just the walls and a roof, but the actual access to that deeper piece, that soul piece that people really need. Indwell comes at this as a developer. When we think of developers, when we think of development, we often think of capital projects and shovels in ground. And for most for-profit developers, that's the goal, to get as much real estate as possible and then to maximize profit. And so Indwell is coming at this from a completely different angle. They're looking to be places where there isn't isolation for people, there is community and the goal is not to maximize profit, but to maximize impact and health and well-being and belonging, as your mission states. Can you talk about what that's like? Especially right now, as we hear from many federal and provincial politicians and many at the municipal level, the idea often being pushed is that we need to open up more land and space for developers and erect more buildings, more houses, more and more. And it really starts to ring hollow when we recognize that there has been a ton of supply available for many years in the past. And yet we have still come to this point where we have this problem of prices skyrocketing, whether it's mortgages and real estate or rent skyrocketing. So can you talk about how Indwell approaches this as a developer who recognizes that we don't just need more buildings, but that we actually have a problem with how we do housing? How does Indwell approach the housing crisis as a developer? 

Leah [20:15]: When you look at somebody who is unhoused, to be housed has a huge impact on that individual, mostly for the better, but also it's a huge adjustment, right? We're taking an individual who might be living in an encampment, who had community in their encampment, and moving them into a new community of neighbours they don't really know with the opportunity to focus on health and not housing for the first time. But that also has a really large impact on an individual. And so when we build housing, we have to be very intentional at ensuring that we're developing and designing programming and a building that's going to limit that impact for a tenant moving in. And so that is why we started working the way we do in terms of development. We also said, hey, we need more housing, let's figure out how to do it. And so that is what we've been doing. And it's been a lot of growth and learning as we go along. But our tenants are guiding us through that—what they like, what they don't like, how we design better. And that is our goal; we're not building just affordable supportive housing, we're building quality supportive housing. We want to build housing for individuals that we would want to live in because everyone deserves good shelter. Not just shelter, but really good-quality shelter. And so we looked at our designs to say how do we do that? One of the things that we also recognize is that if we are going to develop, we want to do that in the most environmentally friendly way possible. And so we really looked at designing our buildings to limit our carbon footprint. We're looking at lowering our emissions. We want to ensure that the utility costs for our building are limited. And so we design and build all of our homes to a passive house standard. We design quality buildings that are also environmentally friendly. Our program staff influence the design of our buildings. It's not just putting up 41 apartments, it's the intentionality that goes into the design of that. We know what works really well in terms of size for our tenants apartments. We've heard from tenants who say, “I've been living in a 500 square foot apartment and my anxiety and my mental health has increased because I have to fill that apartment with belongings and then I have to clean it. I could actually benefit from a smaller unit.” And so through time, we've really learned to understand from our tenants what works best for them in terms of growing their health, wellness and belonging. So our apartments are designed to meet that need, but we are also designing to make sure that we have good and healthy flow in the building, that we're creating a safe environment for folks so that they don't have to worry about who's going to be in the hallways or what could potentially happen in the building. Because the staff is there and the building is designed to be so safe that that's not a worry for them anymore. Nothing's going to get stolen. The other component is that community and staff presence. We are there, we are present, and we are in community together. If we can design our buildings that way, it’s going to better assist our tenants by growing positively in their health and wellness and being impacted only in good ways when they move into our buildings.  

Adam [24:50]: It's really great to hear that those being served by the housing have some input into the development and the design. Sometimes, whether it's a government response or otherwise, folks who are not living rough or close to the streets are the ones actually making the decisions. And there's a huge disconnect there when those not having a lived experience are making the decisions for those experiencing some form of oppression or injustice. And so the ability for Indwell to take that to heart and to take that really seriously and intentionally into the design to me is very hopeful and is a roadmap for us when it comes to local responses, especially here in Kitchener-Waterloo. The desire to see folks living in encampments housed is strong. And there is good partnership on a municipal and regional level. But sometimes the people living close to the streets and their neighbours don’t have a say in what they need and what they don't need. Someone saying this 500-square-foot apartment is actually not what I need, feels very counterintuitive to many of us. But that’s key to understanding our assumptions, our presumptions, our expectations. If we're not the ones experiencing this, we should not be at the forefront. How has that learning journey been for Indwell? You've shared some examples, but what has surprised you and informed and maybe changed how you've approached things as developers, as you've had those relationships with the folks you work alongside and the folks who are housed? 

Leah [27:29]: What's really interesting is, yes, we're the developer. That also means we're the landlord, we're the housing provider. All of those roles allow us to get insight from our tenants. We're an organization that is always adapting our model to meet the needs of our tenants. At the core, our values are love, dignity, and hope. We had a group home in Woodstock, ON. In chatting with the tenants there, they said being reliant on medication administration, being reliant on waiting for a meal at 5 pm, wasn't providing the growth they wanted, nor was it dignifying. Hearing that, we said, let's change our model, let's see what we could do to always provide the best for our tenants. And so, with the support of Woodstock Council, we redesigned that building. We tore it down and we redeveloped it so that everyone had their own apartment, everyone had their own bathroom, everyone had their own space. While supports were still there for medication administration, while we were still providing a meal, we were coming alongside in that skill development and in that design of a building to enhance love, dignity, and hope for our tenants. So we are always willing to try new things to understand what our tenants need and design for that, which is really fun, quite frankly, because then we're always learning new things. We always learn a few lessons when we move our tenants into a new building. We thought a window above everyone's main door would bring in more natural light. And actually, more than one tenant said, we really don't like the window in front of our door because it wakes us up when we're sleeping in the morning. And we're like, we didn't even think of that. We think these aesthetics are really lovely for our tenants, but our tenants are giving us valid input for why it's not preferred. So we take that learning and bring it into each new design.  

Adam [30:17]: I once rented a place in Toronto. It was a room in a house with a bunch of roommates. And it was the master bedroom with this huge skylight right in the middle of the room. And I remember thinking, oh, great, awesome, beautiful skylight. And the way the room was designed, there was only one place to put my bed—directly below the skylight. On summer mornings, if I had a late shift the night before, the sun coming down on me was inescapable. Again, little things like that seemed good in theory. The willingness of Indwell to adjust and pivot based on the recommendations of the folks they're working alongside is really beautiful and refreshing. And that's hard to get on many government levels. And it's hard when the wheels of local government move slowly. An agile and nimble response is required because of needs changing so rapidly, especially in the last two years. A crisis that had always been there was exacerbated and accelerated by the pandemic. As a developer, isn't it hard to make those adjustments? Isn't it hard to redesign whole buildings or aspects of multiple units? Isn't it hard as a developer, to do those things especially knowing that the ability to move with agility and respond quickly is that much harder when you're working in multiple areas and with whole communities? What is that like to have to respond in those ways and often adjust radically?  

Leah [32:45]: Nothing about development is easy. Coming from the program lens we often say, hey, can't we just build 40 units tomorrow? And our development team is always very gracious in saying, no, that's not how development works. It takes a little time, but we have a robust team that talks about our lessons as often as we can so we can incorporate them into our ongoing projects. While we might not be able to adapt to a concern of a tenant in their building, we can adapt to that on future projects. We can work with a tenant to say, okay, how do we cover this window for you? So we're making those adjustments in our buildings and then incorporating them into new designs as we go. But there's lots of communication between our program and our development teams to ensure that as we go, we can make those adjustments. The only time our development team doesn’t love adjustments is close to finishing. So we have lots of conversations early on, St. Mark's being an example of that. We talked about purchasing the building four or five years ago, and even then, we were designing that building, understanding what the program was going to look like, what the tenant population was going to look like, and therefore, how we designed the building. Throughout this whole process, we've looked at how we adapt that building, even as it's being built to meet the needs of the population we'll serve. We are actually supporting Waterloo Regional Housing in one of their buildings at 140 Weber Street in downtown Kitchener. For some of those decisions around, for example, should we put stained glass here? What do you think? I can take that to tenants who have just moved into the building to say, you are moving into an apartment, what would you do? Yes, I like this design, so we can always get input from our fellow tenants or those in our community to give guidance. 

Adam [35:10]: A recent conversation we've been having is about our neighbors who struggle with addiction. We've had Gemma Ricker and other folks from the Working Centre talk about the opioid crisis, which is just staggering across the country. A new documentary has come out called Safe from John Butler. John interviews tenants living in buildings that Indwell operates, sharing their stories and centering their experiences. Can you talk about what you and Indwell have learned about how the opioid crisis is affecting and impacting the fight for housing justice and the housing crisis?  

Leah [36:07]: The first thing to mention is that the opioid crisis is just devastating. As much as we as a community are working to help individuals, we can't keep up with the really devastating and potent substances on the street right now. But we can make sure we're decreasing harm. Our philosophy is that the opposite of addiction is connection. If we can connect people more, we are developing support mechanisms, we are developing more eyes on individuals, we are mitigating that risk to the best of our ability. By creating community, by creating peers to dialogue with, to be safe with one who is using, we're hoping to get ahead of the crisis. We just aired Safe last night, actually, at the Apollo Theatre. It's a great reminder that connection is such a critical piece to overcoming the opioid crisis. Those in the community struggling with substance use need their community around them to navigate through this crisis. To do so in a humble, non-stigmatizing, non-judgmental way is the other really critical point. Our tenants can speak volumes about the stigma they have felt because of their struggles in the past or present, and how connection is the most critical component of overcoming any obstacles. So that was what Safe presented for us, an opportunity to show anybody in the community that providing a little bit of love, providing a little bit of connection, can move mountains in someone's journey for health and wellness, or at least mitigate that risk in the moment. And that's crucial for all of us to know.  

Adam [38:35]: Yeah, it's life and death. There's no other way to put it. You're the regional manager of Waterloo Region for Indwell. Some of the projects going on there include St. Peter's Church on Queen Street, which I think is going to house 41 units. Another one is St. Mark's Lutheran Church, as you mentioned, on King Street in Kitchener, which is going to have 43 units. I also noticed that the Grand River Hotel on King Street in the Preston area of Cambridge is set to receive affordable housing units. As a student at Preston High School, I walked up and down King Street on Friday nights. I've walked by the Grand River Hotel for years and years. I never dared to go in because it wasn't my vibe, but that orange sign is seared into my memory. It's just a piece of my high school years. And now it's going to become affordable housing units, which is amazing. But I also know it has been a struggle in Cambridge to look at not just affordable housing units, but CTS (Consumption and Treatment Services) sites (for safe injection of drugs) and other ways that have been proven to mitigate risk. It has been a struggle in Cambridge to see projects realized for our neighbors who live with addiction. What do we need to understand about harm reduction and harm mitigation so that our neighbours are not ostracized and pushed somewhere else? What can we say to our neighbours who struggle with these harm reduction programs and facilities?  

Leah [41:05]: Yes, thanks for asking that question, Adam. I did get up the guts to go into the Grand River Hotel.  

Adam [41:17]: Wow, you're braver than me. 

Leah [41:20]: It was one of those experiences that was wonderful, but I won't do it again. That's what I'll tell you. For us, it has been such a pleasure to come into the Region of Waterloo and be able to work with our church communities on our first two buildings. To have a building we can renovate that already has love and compassion and joy is such a wonderful opportunity. When we have expanded into different regions, we are used to seeing an old tavern as our first project. If we can take something that has history in the community but rejuvenate it, bring life back into that space in a really healthy way, that is a great way to give back to the community. We see our designing and purchasing of that building as an opportunity to say, hey, we want to be good neighbours, we want to be a part of this community. And so from a design perspective, we are going to hold on to its historical heritage. We are going to design our building and its expansion to ensure that we have that heritage as part of our new community. But when you talk about the struggles of acceptance, coming into a new community is something we're always dialoguing with when we expand into different regions. Sometimes that fear of the unknown creates a fear-based community. When you’re not sure of the unknown, it creates that polarizing them-versus-us mentality very quickly. One of our approaches is to be transparent and to get to know the community well in advance of doing any work on the site. My colleague, Mark, and I are actively meeting with the community and community leaders to say, this is who we are, this is the work we do. This is how we can be a community together. We're developing it as a collective and not just Indwell coming in to do something. We want to be part of the community. And so therefore, the community can be part of our development. And that goes a long way in getting the support from the community and being in a place to talk about the work we do. I don't think it's always easy. We always have some naysayers, and we expect that will be the same with every building we design. Speaking of Grand River, Preston, we have a lot of work to do there and we are aware of the history that some of our partners have, the struggles they've experienced. And so we take that learning and see if we can do better in bringing the community alongside early on.  

Adam [44:55]: Coming at this from a developer standpoint can obviously create some distance. And you've talked throughout this whole conversation about the way Indwell tries to close that gap. When you're doing the design, when you're picking sites, when you're working with the community on a prospective site, you found all these ways to close that gap, to have proximity to folks you're serving and working alongside the community members who will be the neighbours. How can everyday people close that kind of gap? Whether it's an emergency shelter or transitional housing, supportive housing, safe supply programs, how can everyday people close that gap of understanding?  

Leah [46:38]: I think seeing is believing. I often will invite somebody into a building for a tour, but also, we're designing our spaces to have community come into them as well. It's not just for our tenants, it's for outside groups that would like to utilize space or need space. I ask our community to give us a try. Come on in and say hi. Get to understand our work so we can answer any questions or mitigate any fears. Seeing is believing, and being open to a conversation about it is really critical. Further to that, it doesn't have to be just at Indwell. So many of our partner agencies are doing great work on the ground as well. It's getting to know the organization you're comfortable with and ask those questions, go and see and have conversations with tenants because you can learn so much from our tenants. Our tenants have so many strengths and so much they can give to our community as a whole, too. So, yeah, I would say seeing is believing and always being open-minded, asking why, because that will help provide context to understanding the work we do. Ultimately, we believe people are people. There's nothing to be scared of when you know your neighbour is a person just like you. We all have our highs, we all have our lows. So, just simplifying it to understand that people are people is going to help everyone along really quickly. 

Adam [48:58]: I think that's beautiful. In her episode, Gemma talked about the fact that addiction knows no income level, folks of all walks of life do that. Those who are privileged with wealth and community and stable housing, those people struggle with addiction. And we know relapse has happened multiple times for folks with all the access in the world and wealth to respond and to treat addiction. To understand that our neighbours are people and not some caricature or an idea in our head is really critical to initiating what Joe Mancini talked about in his episode, that heart shift for us as community members. We have a lot of church listeners. The Hub is a United Church organization, and Trinity is a United Church. A lot of friends are listening. And one of the whole drives for people of faith, not just Christians, is the ability to grow and be transformed and to grow deeper in love. It's a really hard thing for us to find the courage to move into that heart shift. But it is really critical. And to have Indwell take that relational approach with the community, to be available, to be visible and to have conversations with community members, is a really important example of how that heart shift can initiate with members. Can you share any stories about someone or some groups who were initially naysayers or skeptical who came around to see the need for the work that Indwell does for affordable housing, for being able to work alongside our neighbours who struggle? Do you have any stories of skeptics being turned into believers?  

Leah [51:36]: Well, I've got all kinds of those stories, but I'll focus on one of our buildings in Simcoe, our first building in that region. We didn't have a lot of opportunity to show “seeing is believing” because it was new to the region. The neighbourhood was very nervous about us bringing supportive housing into their community. And there were some people that unfortunately, sold their house and moved away before we could open our building just because of that fear. We have been operational now for seven years, and I was laughing very hard, actually, because we had a barbecue last summer, and all of our neighbours came out to the barbecue. We had our tenants and neighbours walking across the street and saying, “oh, that's so great. Nice to see you. What are you doing here?” He said, “oh, well, you know, one of the tenants, he just came, knocked on our door, and said, come on over. We're having a barbecue.” We're now at that point where I'm feeding the whole community, quite frankly, because our tenants have that bond with their neighbours. The woman who sold her home later told me she wished she had just stuck it out and understood a little bit more about who we were. And the fact that we could have that conversation is quite frankly, beautiful. And so that's a story of how we want to be part of the neighbourhood and hey, how we'll feed you too. 

Adam [53:26]: There's no greater leveling ground like a barbecue to gather everybody. For those of us coming from the Hub, we really believe there is a spiritual power in gathering around the table, in breaking bread together. It goes further than just filling our stomachs. For thousands of years people have found connection through sharing meals. I just love that story.  

Leah [54:22]: At the core of that is just treating people with hope. And so it's taking really simple values and executing them, just making sure that people are feeling loved on a daily basis and that is what creates system disruption right there. 

Adam [54:38]: For those of us who come from Jesus traditions, I would definitely give an amen to that. As we come towards a close of this conversation, I'm excited to have you back in a future episode and have other folks from Indwell be able to share more because there's so much work that Indwell is doing, and we've just focused a little bit on the side of development today. What is one thing you would want people to walk away with knowing about housing justice, especially at this time in the winter of 2023? As we said, there are folks in Waterloo Region and particularly in Cambridge who are still really resistant to seeing this work happen. What is one thing that you would want folks who are skeptical to know about housing justice?  

Leah [55:45]: I would say that anything is possible if you bring love and compassion to the work. St. Mark's Lutheran Church Trinity demonstrated that by saying, “how do we make an impact? Let's see what we can do. We are about to open the doors to 43 individuals for housing.” That's huge. But it demonstrates that the community, that grassroots initiative can get municipal, federal, provincial investment. It doesn't have to be big. It doesn't have to be big capital fundraising. It can be very small because the voices of the community can make change. Continue to love and bring compassion to housing-justice work in this community because that in itself will change systems and create opportunity for more housing and affordable, supportive housing.  

Adam [56:53]: How can people follow Indwell's work? And what are the needs, particularly for folks who will be listening? What are some future projects? Is it volunteers? Is it staff? Are there fundraisers? How can people support Indwell? The Safe documentary is airing in Haldemand-Norfolk, in Peel Region and in different places. Where can people see it? As someone with a background in film, documentary movies change people and can do a lot of that transforming work. How can people follow and support what Indwell is doing?  

Leah [57:39]: I would first turn to our website, Indwell.ca. As well, we're on all the social media channels so please start following us. It would give you a really good glimpse of the work we're doing across Ontario, but specifically in Waterloo Region as well. To that point, we are still airing our Safe documentary in various regions. We just shared the documentary last night in the Region of Waterloo. Because of snowstorms, it has been rebooked in Simcoe and London. So if you're interested, our social media will tell you about Safe documentary viewings still going on. In Waterloo Region specifically, we're still building our community. We are the newbies on the block. We're still getting to know our neighbours and we're always looking for volunteers as we get things ramped up for St. Mark's. We are purchasing furniture and assembling it. We are taking all the cardboard out of stoves and fridges and doing some of that nitty gritty work of being a new homeowner. So we're always looking for volunteers. If you're interested, please drop a note at Indwell.ca and our staff will connect with you very eagerly, I'm sure.  

Adam [59:20]: Awesome. Thanks so much, Leah, for being here today, for chatting about Indwell. I'm really excited to have you and your colleagues join us for a group conversation in our next batch of episodes in our next season, this spring. And thanks for the work you also are doing at Indwell. You're an incredibly educated and gifted and talented person, and you could have gone in many directions and there would have been many for-profit and money-making enterprises that you could do. But you yourself are an example of how heart-shifts happen and how everyday people can choose to move us from housing crisis to housing justice. To take your gifts and your training and your heart and to invest it in the work of Indwell is an inspiration for me and for us. So I'm really grateful for your time today and even more grateful for the time that you give every day of the week to the work that Indwell is doing, taking us from housing crisis to housing justice.  

Leah [50:38]: Thank you for that, Adam. I often say that it's my privilege. I get the great opportunity to work with so many amazing tenants on a day to day basis. It is so much fun that sometimes you forget that it's work. Thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to have a conversation about the work we do. We love our work and we're very passionate about it, and to be able to chat about Indwell is great. So thank you very much for the opportunity.  

Adam [61:14]: You're very welcome. It's a beautiful way to end it until we chat next time. And for those who are listening, this is our finale for season one, but we will be back very soon with season two and it won't take till next year to do it. We hope to be back in the spring with more episodes as we continue to look at how we go from housing crisis to housing justice. So please continue to follow us as well on our social media and our website, which are linked in the captions somewhere in this video. But if you're watching on a platform that can't see that, you can follow the work of Winter Is Coming at Trinityunitedkw.ca or on social media @Hubstagrams or Facebook.com/hubworship to follow what the Hub is doing, what Trinity is doing and for updates on the new season of Winter Is Coming, which will be arriving very soon. So, Leah, thanks so much for joining us today. And thanks everyone for the really great feedback and the great listenership. We've seen hundreds of people tuning in this season. We're really grateful. And please reach out if you want to learn more about getting involved in this project or in projects like Indwell, the Working Centre, or any of the guests that we've featured on this first season. You can email us at hubleadership@gmail.com. We would love to connect you with any of our guests or their work or find out how you can be a part of this project. So for the Hub and for Trinity United and for Winter is Coming, my name is Adam Creswell and we will talk to you with the advent of season two in just a couple of months. Thanks so much for listening, everybody.