WINNIPEG — The lot Jesse Bettcher lives on in Winnipeg’s north end used to be a pile of burnt rubble. But he’s now the proud owner of a two-storey house with blue-grey siding and white trim, so new the orange construction fencing is still out front. It’s a dream home for Bettcher, and the latest hope for a city seeking to knock down, clean up and revitalize neighbourhoods that have seen hundreds of homes left vacant, leading to safety hazards and worries about the future.
He bought the house as part of a pilot project aimed at creating affordable home ownership. It let him and his family move out of a rental that he said was falling apart. “It’s surreal, it’s like an Airbnb almost,” said Bettcher, standing on the dirt of his front yard.
He said that with a credit score below 500 he had a lot of help, including from a provincial credit union, to buy. What the family used to pay in rent, they now use for a mortgage, money effectively passed on to the next generation. “It’s for the kids.” Many hands helped build this house.
The city sold the lot to Purpose Construction for a dollar. The social enterprise built the house with Step Up Construction and Build Inc. One of the first projects was Bettcher’s house.
Another is the one across the street from him, which has been cleared and getting ready for construction. There has also been money from the province, and advocacy from local leaders such as Darrell Warren. “If people see new houses built on these lots, they’ll notice the change, and that gives people living here hope,” said Warren, head of the William Whyte Neighbourhood Association.
He has been pushing for the program to reverse the growing number of derelict properties that risk making more people leave. “If you just keep seeing boarded-up derelict property, you’re going to think ‘Well, I don’t want to live there,'” said Warren. People in William Whyte do see a lot of those properties.
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