Vacant Winnipeg complex being redeveloped into social housing units

The empty Centre Village housing complex on Balmoral Street is pictured on April 28, 2023. (Source: Scott Andersson/CTV News Winnipeg)

A Central Park-area complex that’s been sitting vacant for years is now being redeveloped into social housing units.

The province is donating the land at Centre Village – located at 575 Balmoral Street – to the Winnipeg Housing Rehabilitation Corporation (WHRC).

WHRC will receive up to $2.2 million is capital funding towards the complex’s redevelopment, which will include a new 30-unit building.

The government is also providing around $577,000 annually to ensure units will be rented on a rent-to-income basis.

In a release, WHRC’s executive director James Heinrichs, explained the impact of the project on the community.

“This project will provide a home and hope for our most vulnerable populations, youth at risk of homelessness,” said Heinrichs.

According to the release, WHRC will partner with the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs’ First Nations Family Advocate Office and Spence Neighbourhood Association’s Youth Homelessness program to “provide housing and wraparound supports to youth exiting the child welfare system and to expectant parents at risk of Child and Family Services involvement.”

Centre Village was built in 2010 by CentreVenture Development, Knox United Church, and the Manitoba government for $3.7 million, and won a number of architecture awards.

It was initially operated as a cooperative housing for newcomer and low-income families, but Manitoba Housing took ownership of it in 2015.

In the years that followed, vacancies at the housing unit rose and the facility was ultimately shut down in 2021.

With files from CTV’s Katherine Dow