Housing Society To Offer Event Series

De Clarke/ Cortes Currents - From March through July of this year, Cortes Housing Society — in partnership with FolkU — is presenting a series of monthly forums featuring guest speakers and community discussion. These forums will address the vexed issue of housing — both price and availability — which remains a serious problem for the island.

The invited speakers have expertise in various aspects of this problem, and some will be sharing results from successful projects in other communities. Cortes Currents interviewed Sadhu Aufochs Johnston, executive director of the Housing Society, to find out more about this event series.

CC: Sadhu, can you explain the vision behind this event series — what is it you’re trying to achieve here?

SJ: Well last December we hosted a housing forum, the report for which is posted online. And one of the things I heard from a number of people was the value that we would get here on Cortes, to learn about innovative housing initiatives happening elsewhere. So there was a strong push to continue the dialogue around housing and to be learning from other places, to continue to learn as a community. And FolkU does that on a regular basis so it seemed like a good partnership.

CC: What will the series look like in practise? What’s the schedule, the format, and what topics are you planning to discuss?

SJ: They’re going to be hosted virtually [Zoom]; there’s lots of people travelling right now, and most of our guest speakers are off-island. So they will be virtual meetings, at least at first. We might start to do some in person as well, but at first it will be all Zoom, and monthly. And it will be Saturday mornings, so people who are working can participate.

We’re trying to hit on topics that were a priority for people coming out of the housing forum. So our first topic will be on March 16th, and that will be Home Sharing. We chose that topic because we know there are a lot of homes on Cortes that are unoccupied [most of the year], and there are also homes that are occupied but underutilised. So maybe the kids have moved away, or for whatever reason, you have 1 or 2 bedrooms that may be available, or a small cabin.