Four Calgary companies are making housing history this summer by pooling corporate cash and volunteer labour to raise the walls on two of the 27 new townhouses Habitat for Humanity is building.

“It was our biggest day – ever,” says Habitat Calgary’s Diane Reid, of the way 100 volunteers from the four companies recently donned hardhats and tool belts for a building blitz that completed the exterior walls of two three-bedroom townhomes in the southeast community of Dover.

Each of the companies, Blake Cassels & Graydon LLP, CIBC World Markets Inc., Enerplus Resources Fund and Nexen Inc., also kicked in a quarter of the $160,000 it will cost to finish the homes at Sun Court.

All of the development work, from assessment to engineering and architectural design, was volunteered by another group of firms assembled by Cardel Custom Homes. That team included Poon McKenzie Architects, UMA Engineering, Genstar Development Co., the legal firm of Burnett Duckworth and Palmer, Alpine Environmental Consulting and Floen and Sloan Appraisal (1985) Ltd.

Photo courtesy of Diane Reid
Walls go up on one of the 27 townhouses being built by Habitat for Humanity in a southeast Calgary neighbourhood.

By the end of next winter, Habitat Calgary hopes to have completed 13 of the homes, with the final 14 to be built over the following year.

“I think this is an excellent first attempt at partnering with other organizations to try and make a real impact with this type of giving,” says Jo-Anne Caza, VP of investor relations with Enerplus.

Caza says the four-way partnership kicked off last December after Enerplus and Nexen learned both companies were looking for ways to step up their involvement with Habitat’s cause. That led to discussions with Blake Cassels & Graydon LLP, which both energy companies use, then expanded to CIBC World Markets, another industry connection Enerplus and Nexen shared.

“They work together in the business world, they’re going to work together in the charity world, too,” says Reid, who says she likes the way these companies think.

While framing days such as the one held last month always attract enough volunteer labour, including construction professionals to lead onsite teach-and-build sessions, the cold cash of corporate sponsors and donations of building material still top the list of what Habitat needs to satisfy its mandate to build simple, decent and affordable homes for families in need.

Habitat Calgary has built 42 homes in Calgary since 1988. Each of the low-income families in these homes contributes 300 hours of “sweat equity” to their home’s construction.

Chosen because they are working, but making a salary well below the poverty line (set at just under $37,000 a year for a family of four in Calgary), Habitat helps families break the cycle of poverty by buying their own homes and building equity through no-interest mortgages.

One of the houses the four partners helped build in July will be home to Robert and Lynelle Smith-Jones and their three children, ages five, three and one year. The couple was at the July 24 build where Robert, a school caretaker, appreciated the chance to work alongside construction pros and caring volunteers.

Sun Court is Habitat Calgary’s second multi-family project (the first was built in Inglewood several years back) and likely marks a trend toward similar developments in that “entry-level housing in Calgary is now multi-family,” notes Reid. According to Calgary Real Estate Board figures for late July, the average MLS house price in Calgary hovered around $220,500 last month.

The $80,000 homes at Sun Court are sold to pre-selected families at cost through a no-down payment, no-interest mortgage. Each of the homes is funded through donations, with mortgage payments “recycled” to build more homes.

Sun Court is unique in that the land is owned by the Calgary Community Land Trust and leased to the families with 99-year renewable leases.

Made available through a land swap between the federal government and the City of Calgary, the land held in trust will always be used for low-income families, says Reid.

It took the big bucks of four corporations to make the Sun Court project work, but Reid credits four women for getting the ball rolling. In addition to Caza at Enerplus, much of the organizational footwork was done by Peggy Campbell of Blake Cassels & Graydon (BC&G), Wendy Homann of CIBC World Markets and Wendy Daws of Nexen. Daws, a senior executive assistant to Nexen’s CFO, says the initial work began last December.

Ken Mills of BC&G says the project is a good fit with the law firm’s philosophy of corporate donations and a great way to extend charitable giving to internal and external team building.

“It’s a little different than the business cocktail circuit,” admits Mills, who spent part of his July 24 morning introducing people who’d previously met in corporate boardrooms, or had only spoken over the phone.

With interest in the volunteer project running high, co-ordinators are working with Habitat to organize another week’s worth of volunteer days over the ensuing months. More than two dozen employees from each of the four companies will get a chance to take a paid day away from their jobs to spend time at Sun Court.

Volunteers from the four corporate sponsors were given T-shirts bearing a stylized Habitat logo, along with the four logos of the partners-in-service. With BC&G employees in orange shirts, CIBC World Markets personnel in yellow, Enerplus in blue and Nexen in green, the four companies formed a kind of corporate rainbow when they stopped for coffee and a photo on the first build day.

It was good to work “with our partners on something that wasn’t just about oil and gas,” notes Caza, a long-time fan of Habitat for Humanity’s “hand-up” approach to charity.

“Frankly, it sets the stage for other people we work with in industry to come and approach us with other ideas.”

That suggestion makes Diane Reid smile. Habitat Calgary does, after all, have a housing development to finish.