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As public funding announcements went, this one on October 18, 2024 would have interested no one but for the politicians who talked earnestly about why they were spending $3 million to remodel a squat, rancho-bravura-style low-rise at 917 East River Road, New Glasgow. Of course, this was no ordinary house.
Coady’s Place—a former motel, first renovated in 2022 with provincial and federal government money to provide a few dozen, desperate people in the area with decent, affordable apartments to rent—had become locally famous in the two years since it opened amidst the worst housing crisis in 50 years. Its 36 prettily painted, custom-draped units had their own kitchens and Murphy beds. Their residents—aged 28 to 93—felt safe for the first time.
Now, the politicians thundered proudly in their press releases, it was time to add 20 more apartments to the joint, save even more dispossessed people from “struggling to find a place to call their own” and tell the world how “we continue to work” to put citizens in homes, far and near.
But what the politicians did not say that day was that this brave, bold solution to an urgent and growing crisis never was their idea. From the beginning, Coady’s Place was the brainchild of the Nova Scotia Co-operative Council (NSCC), which represents the province’s 20-or-so credit unions and about 280 other co-operatively owned businesses and community organizations. They saw it as a way to fill a dangerously widening social gap in a small community. In fact, it would never have been built without their CEO Dianne Kelderman managing the project directly in the middle of a global pandemic.
“Coady’s Place was a response to a real need, for sure,” she said. “When I figured that the owners of the Terra Inn in New Glasgow might want to sell the building and retire, I saw an opportunity. Here was something that was right in our wheelhouse—looking after our communities, up close and personal—and nobody else was thinking about it, so why not? I put it to our members, and they agreed.”
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