Tag Archives: Cortes Community Housing

At The Museum: ‘Won’t You Be My Neighbour’ Exhibit Explores Community Life In Cortes Island

What does it mean to be a neighbour on Cortes Island? This  question is at the heart of the new Cortes Island Museum exhibition ‘Won’t You Be My Neighbour?’ curated by Melanie Boyle, Managing Director of the museum and Monica Hoffman. Opening Sunday May 4th the exhibit invites visitors on a visual and narrative journey through both the historical and contemporary communities that shaped life on the island.

“The  idea of focusing on neighbourhoods came from the prior exhibition, ‘From the Ground Up,” explained Hoffman.

Boyle added, “We did touch on how people work together to build structures, in terms of collaboration.  It was also about repurposing material and sharing of resources and, in a way, this is also what this new exhibition is about. Collective land arrangements are a way for people to live affordably on Cortes, to share  the land, but also to share the material, resources and work collaboratively. So there’s a lot of overlap.” 

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Cortes Housing talks about Aquifers, Rental Opportunities & More

There has been a lot going on at the Cortes Community Housing Society. They are starting to provide housing for the community, are supporting changes to the island’s bylaws and are acting as a matchmaker for potential renters and landlords. However the first story I want to cover this morning is about the aquifer study that is about to begin.  

“We just received a grant from the Real Estate Foundation to develop an aquifer health assessment for our island. A lot of the islands south of us are having water problems and we really want to get ahead of this by being proactive and understanding what’s happening on our own island.  With climate change, obviously many of the assumptions of how things work are changing, but getting baseline and putting in together some things that we as a community can do to protect our water systems seems important to do before we have the kind of problems that we’ve seen  in other communities,” explained Sadhu Johnston, Executive Director of the Housing Society.  

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Rural Modular Housing

Tune in on September 20th for another collaborative monthly housing forum presented by the Cortes Housing Society and Folk University. Themed “Rural Modular Housing”, this forum featured guest panelists Michelle Mazzotta (Viva Kiwi), Ken Sharpe (Supermod), and Salik Khan (Rohe Homes). This is a recording of our September forum, hosted over Zoom, with over 45 people in attendance. Hear us chat about different kinds of modular homes, pricing, benefits and challenges, and the possibility of using them to combat our housing crisis.

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Music & 9 Special Projects: The Care 4 Cortes Campaign

The Care 4 Cortes campaign officially ends today, but there is still an opportunity to donate this weekend. 

Manda Aufochs Gillespie, Executive Director of the Cortes Island Community Foundation, explained “There’s still a day or two where we’ll leave up our Care for Cortes donation page on Cortes Foundation.ca.  you can  still see all the different projects that were highlighted. Give to them,   if you have the financial wherewithal.  It doesn’t have to be a lot.  $20 to  something like MicroGrants for Neighbours or to the Cortes Death Caring Collective, makes a difference. If a lot of people do it, this makes a big difference.” 

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Area C Director’s Report: a housing update

From the desk of Regional Director Robyn Mawhinney

Midsummer greetings!
Housing is an important issue here in Area C, across the region and our province. This report provides a housing-related update on some of what’s happening locally.

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