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By Ben Tompkins

Filling the void

North East Housing Co-op trying to increase affordable rental housing in the area

Sep 11, 2025 | 10:12 AM

A new co-operative has officially unveiled its efforts to increase affordable housing options in northeast Saskatchewan.

The North East Housing Co-op (NEHC) was created roughly a year ago, but until very recently, it wasn’t publicly known about.

The group, established by local business leaders, was trying to get itself off the ground and become legitimate before revealing its plans and hopes for the northeast housing market.

“Our vision and purpose is a non-profit housing cooperative that would like to develop an increase in affordable rental housing because there’s a big gap in our communities. We began more focused on the Melfort area, but have since expanded to the Humboldt area as well, and in the last year, we’ve just been getting to a point where we can apply for financial grants to start building,” explained NEHC President Ryan Olson.

“Now, it’s all about identifying appropriate land in Humboldt, St. Brieux, and Melfort, and determining what kind of housing and how much housing we need in these areas. We’ve now found a spot in Melfort that we feel is appropriate for phased-in rental housing.”

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As it stands today, the land over by the new Co-op grocery store in Melfort has been identified as an area where 100 housing units could be built, while in St. Brieux, they have found a location where 40 housing units could be built. In Humboldt, they are still searching for a suitable location.

“There’s a lot of manufacturing to support the ag industry in this, and there are a handful of companies making new investments and expansions. They are going to require new workers for this, and the concern is that there’s a real lack of rental housing available so people can come and work in these industries,” Olson added.

“Our intent is to close the loop and try to get the cities and RMs on board with nice housing that can allow people to expand. The next step for us is going out and getting public support from various companies or municipalities to help raise some money for us to get these applications started and get the funding process going.”

The expected need in the ‘Iron Triangle’ region (because of the growth of manufacturing, agri-business, and mining in the area) is more than 600 homes.

A site plan in Melfort is being worked on, and the co-op said that if the funding comes through, as they already have a builder in mind, construction could start within the year and be completed in a two-year time period.

Eventually, the founding members want to turn control of the housing co-op over to the people who will live there.

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Ben.Tompkins@pattisonmedia.com

On X @BenTompkins_8