A Winnipeg congregation has unveiled plans to provide housing for people experiencing homelessness and addiction.

Riverwood Church Community is getting ready to begin construction on Riverwood Housing. It aims to provide supportive housing to some of the 1,500 people experiencing trauma and homelessness in Winnipeg.

Research has shown, "The economic impact of substance abuse and addiction ... continues to grow in Winnipeg and Manitoba, estimated to have already surpassed $2,000,000,000 per year."

Riverwood Housing will invest in the treatment of substance abuse and healing from trauma by providing supportive housing. The same research shows that providing resources to the homeless will "yield an equally staggering 7 to 1 cost-benefit ratio" meaning there is a seven times return on any investments in helping the homeless.

"The average cost of a homeless person is $50,000 a year in Canada," says Don Kroeker the President of Winnipeg Supportive Housing Inc. Riverwood House hopes to reduce this by providing supportive housing to encourage fully independent living, recovery from trauma and addiction and time.

"But the most important thing is the changed life of this person."

Don and Eileen Kroeker started thinking about supportive housing and helping homeless people in Winnipeg about two years ago when "we felt God nudge us that we should try to do something about it."

After sharing their dream with friends, doing research and building a team, Don and Eileen formed the nonprofit, Winniepg Supportive Housing Inc. The two were soon joined by Peter Hargraves, principal architect at Sputnik Architecture and John David Pankratz, Director of Social Enterprise a Resource Assistance for Youth (RAY).

When deciding to start building a supportive housing space at 315 Talbot in Elmwood this team connected with Riverwood Community Church, Finding freedom, and the Re:Act program.

Don Kroeker explains this as being the perfect match: "Right from the beginning, it was not our goal to own and operate this project, we wanted it to happen so we needed an appropriate partner that was a charity ... was strong enough to handle this ... and was passionate, and Riverwood church community met all of those."

Community Pastor at Riverwood, Jon Courtney who has been very involved in supportive community programming in Elmwood says, "I think in our engagement over the years we have really seen the cyle that happens when people are achieving some level of success in their recovery [programs] specifically around their addictions and mental health and yet there are timelines attached to that recovery."

Once recovery programs are over people will be "placed back into vulnerable housing" and so "there are relapses and just a re-engagement with those difficult situations," says Courtney.

Riverwood Housing will provide free supportive housing and will make programs available for as long as participants need to remove the fear of what often comes after a program finishes.

At a press conference on October 31, it was announced that construction on Riverwood House will begin in the spring of 2020 and will finish in the spring of 2021.

Daniel Blaikie, the MLA for Elmwood and Transcona, says, "I think its a really exciting project.

"I think it is a good place to be people who are trying to get back on track and I think it will add a lot to the neighbourhood."

The building itself will offer 40 individual units of either 220 square feet or 340 square feet. Each unit will be outfitted with a bathroom, kitchen, bed and living space. Riverwood House will also be an accessible space for those with disabilities.

In designing the building Peter Hargraves made sure to repurpose the small building on the property. During the press conference Hargraves referred to the existing building as having, "good bones," and that the goal is to incorporate this building into the larger system of buildings on the property just as Riverwood House aims to be supportive and incorporate people experiencing homelessness in Winnipeg.