Former Stratford Summer Music boss to lead housing consortium

A new group of housing experts has been formed to address the lack of affordable options in the city.

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As part of this new initiative, former Stratford Summer Music general manager Kendra Fry has been hired by investStratford as housing specialist for the next year. Fry will lead a team consisting of Nancy Orr, a project co-ordinator and business support specialist, Mitchell Rhodes, former director and current senior consultant of United Housing, and Caroline Baker of the Baker Planning Group.

The creation of this new group was prompted by recommendations from two reports completed by the Stratford Affordable Housing Project, a partnership between the city and investStratford, its economic development corporation. Although the housing specialist is a new role for the city, it will be building off of work that has previously been done, said Joani Geber, the CEO of investStratford.

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“We are in a crisis, for sure, and giving someone with expertise on getting units built and doing some of the research around different funding programs really shows a dedication to helping add dwelling units. So, from the perspective of those reports, the tools that the city has are great. . . but there’s not a human being or a (group) of people dedicated specifically to this issue, and it was felt that that was important in order to actually speed the process up,” Geber said.

According to a May 2023 report, Stratford’s population is anticipated to reach roughly 37,360 by 2032 and 40,380 by 2041. From the report’s 2022 to 2041 forecast period, the city is expected to average 195 new housing units per year, with “a decline of 1,920 population living in existing residential units.” Gerber noted there were roughly 500 people on the waitlist for affordable housing across Stratford, St. Marys, Stratford and Perth County at the end of April.

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“There is no doubt that there are individuals in our community who are very vulnerable to homelessness and to a housing shortage, and so we are going to do whatever we can. We also have the added responsibility, from a workforce housing perspective, that, as our companies grow and their need for employees grows, those individuals want to live in our community, so we need to be mindful of housing units that are priced and costed in a way that’s reflective of the wages that are paid in our community,” Gerber added.

While much of Fry’s background is in the arts, she has also worked on projects repurposing historic buildings, such as churches being reimagined as community hubs, housing and other spaces. This work has included several projects in London, as well as facilitating the sale of Stratford’s Knox Presbyterian Church to BMI Group.

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“It’s less actually about my housing chops and more about bringing together the strengths of this group into one collaborative (group),” said Fry, who started in her new role last week.

“The idea here was, let’s take all of the smartest people in Mitchell and Caroline and Nancy, who have been working on the issues of affordable and feasible housing in Stratford for years, and all the reports up to this point they’ve been involved with in some way, (and) bring those people together and access all of their strengths,” she said.

While both Fry and Geber admit the present one-year timeframe is challenging, Fry will be looking to set concrete goals for affordable units to be built in the future.

“So what it will be more like, how many in the pipeline and how many citizens have we connected with, and how have we created the focus on that and moved forward on the projects that are already in motion in various ways,” she said .

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Stratford has a unique opportunity to encourage homeowners to look at creating secondary suites, accessory units and similar housing, Gerber said. This approach, she added, is the least cost-prohibitive option when it comes to land use since it already has the required servicing.

“So we really want to encourage those residents through some intentional outreach to get some secondary suites built, even if one family can move into or one individual can move into a new dwelling, I think that’s success,” she said.

The group is also aiming to engage area residents on how they can be part of the solution, Fry said.

“Really, it’s a supporting position to help to supercharge affordable and feasible housing.”

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