History

The Town of Hearst Non-Profit Housing Corporation was created by the Municipality and duly incorporated under the provisions of the Business Corporation's Act on November 18th, 1980 with a mandate to provide housing to disadvantaged citizens within the community.

Due to the existence of a serious accommodation shortage in the Town of Hearst, a non-profit housing corporation was formed to provide some relief for this problem. The housing corporation began as a private non-profit corporation in the fall of 1977. Ten citizens, forming the Board of Directors of the Corporation, conducted a survey of housing needs in Hearst. This survey originated the "Logepop" project, called Place Lambert today, which consists of twenty-five family units in a multiple row housing design. It was the intent of the private non-profit housing corporation to provide rental accommodations of such type as indicated by their survey and at reasonable rates to the tenant.

Since the formation of the private non-profit housing corporation, it has been assessed that greater benefits for the corporation would be derived from a municipal non-profit housing corporation rather than a private one. It was found that municipal resources were needed to support the private corporation in areas such as management, for the amount of this type of expertise available in a small town such as Hearst is limited. Lower income tenants also benefit from programs such as subsidized rent which are more easily tailored to existing needs through municipal non-profit housing corporations. For these reasons, the municipality has decided to form a municipal non-profit housing corporation with the intent of taking over the existing private non-profit corporation which occurred in 1980.

The municipal non-profit housing corporation then, in 1980, received its first allocation and undertook the construction of the twenty-five units at Place Lambert and assumed the management.

Following a detailed study of the housing situation within the community conducted in 1984, which revealed a heavy demand for Family Assisted Dwelling Units, Senior Citizens apartments and housing for Special Groups, a series of applications were then formulated.

Today, the Corporation manages and operates a total of 97 housing units throughout the Town of Hearst. Provincial and Federal funding commitments for each specific project enable the Corporation to operate at a break-even point.