What would housing look like if community, hospitality, and beauty were at the forefront? These things are sometimes experienced in housing but rarely priorities in affordable housing, often neglected in lieu of more units or smaller footprints – which doesn’t align with Islamic values, or supporting communities to flourish.

This is the third episode of the five part Halal Housing Lab podcast series, exploring how we might create community resiliency within affordable housing projects for multigenerational Muslim families in Edmonton, Alberta. The Halal Housing Lab is a collaborative project between our partners at Islamic Family, Another Way, SAS Architecture, Ask for a Better World, and Intelligent Futures, funded by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Over the course of the past several months, we’ve begun working to find new and innovative housing solutions that not only accommodate the needs of multigenerational Muslim families, but can improve the housing market for everyone in Canada.

Community resilience is the sustained ability of communities to withstand, adapt to, and recover from adverse change, to come back stronger than ever. Today, I’ll chat with three of our lab partners: Islamic Family’s Programs Director, Lena Awwad, architect and passionate citizen Shafraaz Kaba of Ask For A Better World, and servant of servants, Omar Yaqub of Islamic Family to better understand community resiliency within the Muslim community, and the impacts of resiliency on affordable housing design.

If you know of any non-traditional affordable housing models that you think might be relevant to the exploration of Halal Housing, drop us a note at hello@360degree.city. We would love to hear about them!

Resources

Islamic Family Service Hub: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/ifssa-refugees-newcomers-hub-community-1.6592455

The Canadian Prayer Rug: https://www.canadianprayerrug.ca/