Four Students Receive “2024 MPNL Social Innovation Fellowship Award”

The “Dr. Tessa Hebb Graduate Award in Social Innovation” is awarded to students involved with a project in the not-for-profit sector through the Carleton Centre for Community Innovation. This year, Marlys Jordan (team lead), Damilola Abimboye, Erin Larmondin and Jeanette Wilson receive an Award for their MPNL capstone project, “Is Affordable Housing Really Affordable? The Dual Challenge of Providing Affordable Seniors Housing.”

The capstone report, in collaboration with Westwinds Communities, a nonprofit organization that provides affordable homes and services for seniors, families and individuals, looks at the D’Arcy Affordable Housing Development in Okotoks, Alberta, just south of Calgary. The proposed Okotoks development is in the planning stages and targeted to provide affordable housing to seniors using a multi-tiered funding model.

The capstone looks at how multi-tiered funding strategies, including social finance mechanisms, can address affordability for both the housing provider and seniors . More broadly, it identifies systemic issues, like rising construction costs, inconsistent policy support, a lack of transparency in government practices, and limited collaboration among stakeholders, all of which impact the sector’s capacity to meet the demand for seniors housing. Their findings show that collaboration between governments, nonprofits, private-sector partners, and communities is essential to address a growing crisis.

The “Dr. Tessa Hebb Graduate Award in Social Innovation” (also known as the “2024 MPNL Social Innovation Fellowship Award”) was endowed in 2009 by an anonymous philanthropic gift to further Carleton’s development of thought leaders, educators and professionals in the nonprofit sector. Preference is given to students who are pursuing research in civil society and whose work may enhance program or process innovation and capacity building in the nonprofit sector.