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Hamilton hosts Nordic experts in affordable housing
(Hamilton Spectator, Andrew Dreschel, March 18 2018)

Maybe Hamiltonians should be learning to say "skol" this spring.

Thanks to five Scandinavian countries, the city is getting an estimated $170,000 worth of free expert advice on its social housing challenges.

In May, more than a dozen delegates from several Nordic countries will arrive to take part in a two-day workshop intended to bring new ideas to Hamilton's growing focus on affordable and sustainable housing.

The event is funded by a group of Nordic organizations and an arm of the governments of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland that promotes Nordic solutions to urban development issues.

Glen Norton, Hamilton's director of economic development, hopes the project fires up local housing stakeholders with ideas to help improve the existing affordable housing stock and break the backlog of some 6,300 people on the wait list.

"We have to figure out a way to get more done, to get ahead of the growing list, and I think this event will be one of the initiatives that we need to do," Norton said.

"I would love as an outcome that we sort of step up the pace that we get affordable housing built in the city."

Why did the Nordics choose Hamilton?

According to urban planner Pamela Tiller, who works for the Royal Danish Consulate in Toronto, Hamilton sprang to mind as a result of media coverage of last year's "Hamilton Consulate" in Toronto, part of a GTA marketing blitz by the city's ec-dev department, and a splashy article on the city in Toronto Life magazine.

Tiller, whose job is to promote Danish urbanism abroad, says Hamilton jumped out as an agile, innovative city hungry for change and open to outside solutions to urban problems.

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