Halal Housing Lab | 360 Degree City

Halal Housing Lab: Community Experience

April 23, 2023 in Community, Halal Housing Lab, Housing

This is the fifth and final instalment of the Halal Housing Lab podcast series, where we’ve been exploring the complexity of affordable housing development, alongside new and innovative solutions to affordably house multigenerational Muslim families in Edmonton, Alberta. The Halal Housing Lab is a collaborative project between our partners at Islamic Family, Another Way, SAS Architecture, Ask for a Better World, and Intelligent Futures, funded by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

Throughout the first four episodes of the podcast series, we’ve talked with many of our lab partners, who are experts in navigating the systems and scales of affordable housing development. One expert voice that has been absent from this conversation, is the voice of Muslims with lived experience in affordable housing developments. In today’s podcast episode, we dive into a great conversation co-produced by our Lab partner Hussain Khan of Islamic Family, in conversation with Howaida Hassan, to better understand the lived experience of affordable housing in the Muslim community. Howaida Hassan is a Director Urban Growth and Open Space with the City of Edmonton, as well as a Board member of Islamic Family. Howaida is interested in the cross-section of city building, urban mobility and equity and how it shapes our cities. A big part of her career and how she thinks about equitable and accessible cityscapes, is through her experiences of living in affordable housing with her family for the first ten years of her life.

Resources

Islamic Family Podcast:https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/ifssa-islamic-family-social-services-association/id1448826236

Hussain Khan on Instagram: @hvssain.k

Halal Housing Lab: Halal Financing

April 9, 2023 in Community, Halal Housing Lab, Housing, Justice

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This is the fourth episode of the Halal Housing Lab podcast series, exploring how we might finance an affordable housing project for multigenerational Muslim families in Edmonton, Alberta, while being respectful of the financial values of Islamic culture. The Halal Housing Lab is a collaborative project between our partners at Islamic Family, Another Way, SAS Architecture, Ask for a Better World, and Intelligent Futures, funded by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Over the course of the past several months, we’ve begun working to find new and innovative housing solutions that not only accommodate the needs of multigenerational Muslim families, but can improve the housing market for everyone in Canada.

Conventional financing models keeps many Muslims, as well as service organizations like Islamic Family, out of the affordable housing market. A central component to the Halal Housing Lab has been to identify how different models of affordable housing financing can be leveraged to support diverse world views, while working within the larger Canadian housing system. Financing is a critical component to the success of any housing development, and when the idea of money is inherent to cultural values that differ from the North American norm, it compounds the difficulty of addressing the growing shortage of affordable housing in Canadian cities. While challenging, learning from Islamic values towards money through the concept of Halal financing, has the potential to create more equitable and transparent financial systems for all.

If you know of any non-traditional affordable housing models that you think might be relevant to the exploration of Halal Housing, drop us a note at hello@360degree.city. We would love to hear about them!

Resources

Community Investment Co-operatives: https://bcca.coop/community-investment-co-ops-a-growing-co-operative-sector-in-bc/

Islamic Family podcast on Zakat: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/ifssa-islamic-family-social-services-association/id1448826236

McCauley Development Cooperative: https://socialenterprisefund.ca/client/mccauley-development-cooperative/

Halal Housing Lab: Community Resilience

March 26, 2023 in Community, Halal Housing Lab, Housing

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What would housing look like if community, hospitality, and beauty were at the forefront? These things are sometimes experienced in housing but rarely priorities in affordable housing, often neglected in lieu of more units or smaller footprints – which doesn’t align with Islamic values, or supporting communities to flourish.

This is the third episode of the five part Halal Housing Lab podcast series, exploring how we might create community resiliency within affordable housing projects for multigenerational Muslim families in Edmonton, Alberta. The Halal Housing Lab is a collaborative project between our partners at Islamic Family, Another Way, SAS Architecture, Ask for a Better World, and Intelligent Futures, funded by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Over the course of the past several months, we’ve begun working to find new and innovative housing solutions that not only accommodate the needs of multigenerational Muslim families, but can improve the housing market for everyone in Canada.

Community resilience is the sustained ability of communities to withstand, adapt to, and recover from adverse change, to come back stronger than ever. Today, I’ll chat with three of our lab partners: Islamic Family’s Programs Director, Lena Awwad, architect and passionate citizen Shafraaz Kaba of Ask For A Better World, and servant of servants, Omar Yaqub of Islamic Family to better understand community resiliency within the Muslim community, and the impacts of resiliency on affordable housing design.

Resources

Islamic Family Service Hub: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/ifssa-refugees-newcomers-hub-community-1.6592455

The Canadian Prayer Rug: https://www.canadianprayerrug.ca/