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Room For The Kids; New Housing Project Designed For Aboriginals With Big Families
[October 13, 2007]
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The Edmonton Sun – Saturday, October 13, 2007
By Kevin Crush, Sun Media
Susan Zieminek beams with pride as she shows off her daughters' new bedrooms.
As a family of currently six, they have had to struggle for housing for years but a new housing project in the Montrose area is going to change that, with a focus on large families.
"Here, the kids can have their friends over and even have a sleepover, because the girls were always sharing a room," said Zieminek.
In a partnership between Umisk Affordable Housing Society and the Edmonton Housing Trust Fund, the Nellie Nome Manor for large aboriginal families was opened yesterday with six units of six bedrooms each, at rents of $700 per month.
There is often far too little housing for large families in the city, said Edmonton Housing Trust Fund acting executive director Susan McGee.
"It's very difficult. Your conventional market has one- or two-bedroom houses, maybe three bedrooms. But you move into having a larger family where you need six bedrooms and you're very limited. You're talking about a very large home in a developed neighbourhood, which would really be out of the price range for the families who would be moving in here."
Lawrence Willier, president of Umisk, said a shortage of housing for struggling large families keep many on welfare.
"This doesn't hold them back, because it is affordable, so the rent is not nearly as high for them to make it and they don't have to take all their money from employment to be able to pay off their home, let alone buying clothes for kids."
Willier said if this project works out, the group may look at developing more projects specifically for large families.
In the Zieminek case, the family had eight children and was living in a small mobile home in Spruce Grove when they found they could no longer afford it. Moving with six children into Edmonton, there was almost nowhere for them to turn.
When landlords learned they had six kids, the doors would quickly shut.
And the cost of housing for such a large family was keeping them tied to welfare.
"We were on assistance for a long time and we just couldn't seem to get off no matter what we did," said Zieminek.
They were finally able to get on with Umisk and were put up into a three-bedroom unit.
It was still a squeeze, but they were able to afford it. Since then, Susan has gone to school and became a medical office assistant with MediCentre, while her husband got his computer technician certificate.
They have been off social assistance for three years.
But they still had the problem of crowding - until now. They're due to move in Nov. 1 with the four kids still living with the family - ages 12, 13, and a pair of twins turning 15 tomorrow.
Zieminek said her three daughters have already claimed the three basement bedrooms so they wouldn't have to fight with their brother for the bathroom down there.
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