Transcript
Speaker: I'm Jane Williams. This is the Red Eye Podcast. You can hear our live broadcast on Saturday mornings from 10 till noon at 100.5 FM in the Lower Mainland.
Speaker: On the podcast today, I speak with Pat McLean and Ben Walsh, collaborators on a film celebrating the 40th anniversary of Paloma Housing Co-op in Vancouver.
Speaker: Paloma Housing Co-op was founded in 1983 by a group of Vancouverites who were interested in finding an alternative to the real estate market. Working with inner city housing and with help from government grants and low interest loans, the early members of Paloma built the co-op literally from the ground up.
Speaker: In the process, they learned the skills necessary to self-govern and maintain a 44-unit apartment building. This year marks the co-op's 40th anniversary, and there's a film to celebrate that milestone.
Speaker: It's called In It Together, Stories from Paloma Housing Co-op, and it's showing tomorrow afternoon at the Rio Theatre in Vancouver. Producer Pat McLean is an original member of the co-op. Director Ben Walsh is currently president of the board, and Pat and Ben joined me today to talk about Paloma. Hello, Pat.
Speaker: Hi, Jane. And hello, a Ben. Hello. Now, Pat, you have been involved right from the start. What stands out for you about those three years when you were involved in building the co-op?
Speaker: Yeah, I think for me, the in the early years, just that whole sense of coming together and becoming a community, I mean, that really struck with me. And of course, that's the way we've gone ever since. And we're an absolutely wonderful community. So, you know, that was the main thing. And of course, other things I was learning about building a co-op and and all the things that were required that we had to do to get together and get new members and all those kinds of things. So it was an exciting time.
Speaker: Ben, you've been a member since 2014. Why did you decide to join? Well, my wife and I were living in a friend's basement suite. And when my wife got pregnant, and particularly when our son Theo was born, we realized that that situation was really not sustainable.
Speaker: And, you know, so both of us are, you know, professionals. I'm a therapist. My wife is a landscape architect. And we began you know looking both for sort of rentals that might be appropriate for us. And we also began you know looking at the real estate market to look if maybe we could buy an apartment.
Speaker: And we realized that the housing market in Vancouver was even for two professionals was just like wildly out of our price range. I mean, it was crazy, crazy expensive. So, you know, we'd always been very community minded. We had lived in community. We've lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico and numerous other places. And we've often lived in situations that where there was a lot of community around and we're very interested in community in general.
Speaker: And so when a friend of ours told us about co-op housing, we got really interested. It was like, oh, it's like self-governed. You know, there's a very strong community aspect. there's a lot of community involvement. People do a lot of the chores around the co-op. People run the co-op.
Speaker: and So that sounded really interesting to us. And then tie in with that, that it's more affordable than you know any of the other options in Vancouver. so we got really interested. And we're so glad we did.
Speaker: It took us about six months of being on the waiting list for, I think we applied to about 30 co-ops. And after six months, we got a few calls and Paloma was the the one that we chose. Paloma, there's a great story in the film about how Paloma got its name. how How did that come about?
Speaker: Yeah, so one of the founding members, Cynthia Mayon, she had been at a peace march, and it was a massive, massive peace march. And so when they were doing the naming ceremony, like she had this whole sort of idea of peace and sort of activism around peace.
Speaker: And Cynthia is a bilingual. She speaks both Spanish and English. And so she was thinking, you know, what about ah a name having to do with the idea of peace? So she suggested the name Paloma, which is the Spanish word for dove and is also a symbol of peace.
Speaker: Pat, you've been at Paloma. You've actually been in the same suite for 40 years. Is that correct? no That's correct. There's 40 years of time for quite a few ups and downs co-op life. What were some of the highlights for you?
Speaker: Well, one of the things that happened was that I was able to go to university because I was living in a secure, affordable place.
Speaker: And the community respected the wishes of the members who wanted to go on and do things like that. And so my housing charges got lowered because it wass living on student loans. So at the age of 48, I was able to go to university and get a degree, which of course enhanced my life immensely. So that was definitely one of the positive things that happened for me.
Speaker: But other things that have happened in the co-op have just been all the social events and being able to go out up the drive and run into to members of the co-op and stop and have a chat, getting to know people, um meeting some just wonderful people. We have such a remarkable mix of people in the co-op and So that's been a real highlight as well. As I've mentioned before, community is really, really important.
Speaker: Now, the co-op pad has had more than its share of challenges with the physical building. You got caught in the leaky condo crisis, in your case, a leaky co-op. But there was also a fire.
Speaker: Yeah, the fire was pretty awful. um I think it happened around nine o'clock at night. And we so we all ended up on the corner of Cotton and and Third watching it. We have two buildings and it was in the building that I don't live in. It was in the East building. And so we watched it happening and and there was a point where we thought, oh, you know, maybe it's out. It seemed like it was kind of going down. And all of a sudden it just shot across the rooftop. And so it ended up affecting 11 of our 44 units, which meant all of those folks had to move out while it was being repaired. It just wasn't safe to live there. And that meant we lost a quarter of our members for that period of time. So that was really challenging. And of course, you know, just dealing with all the repairs and et cetera, it was pretty awful.
Speaker: Now, I've heard, Pat, from friends who've lived in housing co-op. There's a real sweet spot in terms of how many suites there are in the co-op. Too few, you know, and there aren't enough people to do the work and too many, and it becomes a bit more impersonal. Were there discussions at the outset about how big you wanted Paloma to be?
Speaker: I wasn't part of that discussion. By the time I came along, those decisions had already been made. And I do a lot of work with co-ops. And I think that our number of units is really a ah good number of units, anywhere from like 40 to 60 maybe, because, you know, the things that you've mentioned about the possibility of just getting lost in the co-op and not really having that sense of community because people aren't doing all, you know, everyone's not involved in doing the work. you know, that deals with that problem because there is time to not only be involved, but also to take time off and not be involved for a while. But with smaller co-ops, I don't know how they do it because it means everybody has to do everything. You know, in some co-ops, it means every member has to be on the board at the same time because they're so small that that's the way it has to work. So, and also they don't have the kind of money that they need to maybe hire management and and that kind of thing. Whereas 44 units is really good. I mean, we can afford to have a management company. And and even though the members do a lot, it doesn't mean every member has to be active every minute.
Speaker: Now, a lot of the people you interviewed, Ben, talked about the unique design of the co-op. It has a large shared courtyard. What is that courtyard used for?
Speaker: I mean, we use the courtyard for really everything. I mean, you know, people just go out there and sort of lounge in the courtyard in pleasant weather. ah There are garden beds in the courtyard. There are actually five courtyards.
Speaker: The central one is sort of the main one. And the courtyards are used for for growing food or like social times. Obviously, when we had our 40th anniversary, There's just a giant party that happened in the courtyard and we also do some barbecues and things like that all the time. To my mind, the outdoor spaces in the co-op are really crucial to the community building aspect. If we only met each other kind of in the hallways and like in the in the common room, you know, during community meetings,
Speaker: there wouldn't be that much opportunity to build community. But you know when you're out working in your garden bed or even just out you know having a a nice time you know on a summer day, you know your neighbors will stop by and you'll start up conversations and your kids play together. And it's such a wonderful asset in terms of of building community.
Speaker: You mentioned that one of the highlights for you, Pat, was when you were able to go to university because the co-op was able to lower your housing charges. Does the co-op still have control over the housing charges?
Speaker: Well, up to a point. One of the things that's happened for us is that we're on city leased land and we had to renew our lease a number of years ago when we were a leaky co-op and had to get mortgages to get fixed.
Speaker: So we had to renew our lease at that point. So what's happened is though, there was a ah part in that lease that the city wasn't enforcing. And this city government has decided to enforce that. Well, what that means is they've insisted that our housing charges be up to 85% of market. And of course, as we know, this is one of the most expensive cities in the world, I think. So that really doesn't have any bearing on what it actually costs to run the co-op. So it's become a bit of a hardship for some of our members who,
Speaker: just are on the cusp of maybe not needing subsidy, but this might push them into needing subsidy. And there's only so much subsidy that's available. And CMHC dictates we get money from the government for a subsidy. So it's a bit of a challenge trying to balance that. And as I say, some of our members, it's going to be a real hardship.
Speaker: For those who are already receiving subsidy, it's not going to make a difference. But for the ones that are paying what we call market, it's going to be a challenge. So that's unfortunate. So you're celebrating your 40th anniversary. I'm wondering, what do you think the next 10 years hold for Paloma Co-op?
Speaker: It's possible that I won't be around in 10 years, but what I hope is that our members can start talking now about the vision that they have for our community 10 years from now, or when our lease is up, our land lease is up, because we do know that at that point in time, the city will probably want to take the land and build high rises on it. So I think if our members get involved now and start thinking about, well, what are all the possibilities? How can we control this a little bit more? rather than just letting something be done to us. So um we're going to start talking about, as I say, our vision for the future and what kinds of things we might be able to do to mitigate anything that comes down from the city.
Speaker: Thanks so much to both of you for joining me today. Been a pleasure. Thank you very much. Thanks for having us. I've been speaking with Pat McLean and Ben Walsh. Pat is an original member of the Paloma Housing Co-op, and Ben is currently the president of the board.
Speaker: Their new film about Paloma is showing at the Rio Theatre on East Broadway tomorrow afternoon at 4 p.m., Doors at 3 p.m. If you want to go a little early and hang out with some of the people that you know at the co-op, the film is called In It Together, Stories from Paloma Housing Co-op.
Speaker: You've been listening to the Red Eye Podcast, produced by an independent media collective based in Vancouver. If you enjoyed this episode, it would be great if you left a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps other people to find us.
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Speaker: I'm Jane Williams. Thanks for listening.
