Annual Report 2024

2024 was a year of positive changes for Heartland Housing Foundation. Here are some highlights:

Strategic Plan Updates 

We have updated our strategic plan, setting the direction for our next 4 years with our:

Noble Purpose: We contribute to vibrant communities as a leader in attainable housing solutions.

Our Guiding Principles: Learning, Striving, Leading

And our 4 Strategic Priorities:

• Manage Properties
• Improve Housing Supply
• Deliver Support Services
• Build a Thriving Workplace

We are already seeing the benefits of such a focused and clear direction, and the performance indicators we have embedded into our priorities ensure we are aligned, advancing, and achieving.

 

Leaders in Net Zero Development 

The numbers are in, and the evidence is indisputable – green is good. After a full year of occupancy at Muriel Ross Court, we’ve been able to measure the impact of the building’s net zero features, including its solar power system.  The results speak volumes: we’ve achieved a 34% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.  Even more impressively, solar energy supported 61% of the building’s total energy needs – through both direct use and surplus sales back to the grid during peak hours.  As we continue to monitor the performance of this forward-thinking design, we’re seeing an estimated 45% reduction in energy costs compared to traditional electricity sources.  And we’re not stopping there – our goal is to push those savings even further.

 

Improving Access to our Housing Solutions 

Easier Applications

One of our biggest motivators as an organization is improving how we serve. This year we made significant improvements to our application process.  In mid-2024, the RentCafe online application portal launched – a “one stop shop” for applicants to complete their applications for multiple housing options at a time, including the Rent Assistance Benefit programs we administrate. This online system means more efficient processing of applications, the ability for applicants to check the status of their application, and seamless integration into our tenant management system when tenancy is approved.

Advocacy Results in More Rent Benefits

Thanks in part to advocacy efforts with the provincial government, HHF saw increased funding for the Rent Assistance Benefit funds allocated to our service areas. This means that more households living in our community were able to retain their housing through temporary or long-term benefits. We closed out 2024 with 145 households receiving rent assistance benefits, with more coming online in 2025.

 

Financial Stewardship 

Our lodge operations are funded through partnerships between the provincial government, the municipalities we serve, and our own operations. Each year, we carefully assess the factors that impact our operating budgets for our lodges, which include expenses like nearly 400,000 meals for residents annually, wages for over 200 staff working to support our lodges, and facility management costs for over 400 units of supportive housing. Deficits in those budgets are covered by a requisition for additional funding to the municipalities we serve.

We’re proud to say that our 2024 requisition was just 2%, almost 20% less than the provincial annual average inflation rate.

We credit our talented Operations and Resident Services teams with this achievement, which is further underscored by our high level of resident satisfaction and capital maintenance savings. Here are some highlights:

• Residents completed over 2,700 meal evaluations with an overall food services satisfaction rate of 85%!
• Our Facility Management teams completed nearly 10,000 workorders in 2024, for concerns ranging from small repairs to major capital maintenance projects. Their average time to complete these workorder? Less than 9 days!
• Residents enjoyed over 2400 recreation activities last year with a combined total of 34,000 participants.Bonus fact! Resident and community members provided over 2,000 hours of volunteer time to support recreation and wellness activities throughout our lodges in 2024. Thank you to all our volunteers for their generosity!

 

Investments in Our People 

As an employer of over 200 talented staff, we prioritize recognizing and compensating our team members for their contributions to HHF. This year, we held staff focus groups to dig deep into themes that emerged through our 2023 staff engagement survey. From those focus groups, we began work on refreshing our compensation models, enhancing our benefit packages, and fine-tuning how we seek feedback from our team members.

Speaking of feedback, we also took time this year to take a deep dive into our organization’s values. We wanted to ensure that the values we articulate in our recruitment, communications, and day-to-day operations truly reflected the experience of our team members and what matters to them about their work. After lots of consultation, we proudly launched a slate of refreshed values statements that better represented what we heard from our teams. This launch took place through our peer recognition program, where staff can recognize outstanding performance on a peer-to-peer basis, and in 2024 we saw a whopping 641 recognition submissions!

 

Meeting Community Needs 

With growing waitlists and daily calls and emails from community members in need, we are constantly reminded of the increasing demand for affordable housing solutions in the communities we serve.

One of the ways we aim to help alleviate that need is through the development of new properties. In 2024, we saw progress on our Fir Street development in Sherwood Park, as our zoning was officially approved.

This new building will occupy the site of the old Clover Bar Lodge in central Sherwood Park, with ample amenities and public transportation just steps away. The new building will offer 104 units of below-market rentals from one to three bedrooms, along with a daycare space to serve tenants and neighbours. We are now in the process of acquiring funding for the project, and we aim to break ground in late 2025. For updates, visit www.heartlandhousing.ca/in-development