Re-Fit Store to be converted to housing

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/05/2024 (748 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Brandon’s Building Re-Fit Store is shutting its doors after 28 years to make way for affordable housing.

Located at 23 12th St., the store operated by Community Health and Housing (CHHA) Westman has collected reusable building materials and furniture that would have otherwise gone to the landfill and sold them to the public at an affordable price.

According to former CHHA executive director and current part-time project manager Glen Kruck, the decision to transform the building was made in consideration of SuperThrift and the Habitat for Humanity ReStore opening up similar services after the Re-Fit Store first opened.

“Rather than duplicate existing services, what we want to do is transform the building, the Re-Fit Store, into the next greatest need — which is housing,” Kruck said.

The goal, he said, is to convert the upper floor of the building into 16 affordable family housing units, with the main floor turned into office space for the organization, which has outgrown its current space at 1233 Rosser Ave.

The number of units and bedrooms per unit will depend on the final designs as well as safety regulations.

Kruck said the building is likely more than 100 years old and used to serve as a food warehouse for local grocers before Brandon’s Superstore location opened.

The basement, recently used as a shooting location for a scene in the Manitoba-made indie film “The Princess and the Dragon,” will be used for storage.

Before construction can commence, CHHA is currently looking for seed funding so that it can get environmental and structural assessments of the building done as well as architectural designs for the units.

In March, CHHA applied for $150,000 in grant funding through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and is still waiting to hear if approval will be granted.

Because of those elements, Kruck estimates it will be one to two years before the units can open to tenants.

Across the buildings CHHA already operates, Kruck said it has 10 emergency housing units.

“The problem we have is that our homeless units are for very small families,” Kruck said. “They’re designed for one or two individuals, but frequently we’re putting families of up to five children in one 200-square-foot unit.”

With the city looking for a developer to build 55 small affordable units on a property it owns at 215 12th St. North, Kruck said that will likely serve a good percentage of the population of single homeless people in Brandon.

Because of that, CHHA sees family units as the greatest need in the community.

The rent tenants will be charged will depend on their circumstances. At CHHA’s current housing facilities, Kruck said people without a source of income are still provided housing as staff help them apply for income support programs so they can eventually pay toward their rent.

“Any of the rents that we would charge would not be greater than the social assistance rates in the City of Brandon,” Kruck said.

In some cases, Kruck said clients CHHA works with that are on social assistance but do not have custody of their children are offered the chance to get them back under the condition that they have an apartment with enough bedrooms to accommodate them.

However, without custody of their children, these clients only get enough money to pay for rent at a single-occupant dwelling.

Once CHHA’s units are built, Kruck said they’ll be able to provide these people with a family unit, which will allow them to start getting financial assistance at a higher rate.

Despite the demise of the store, Kruck feels good about what it accomplished.

“I am tickled pink that it served its purpose for so long and we had such outstanding support from the community,” he said. “There’s probably well over 100,000 items … we repurposed and sold … to individuals rather than having them deposited in the landfill site.”

He also said he was proud that the store offered employment to disadvantaged people as well as volunteer opportunities over those years. He said some employees would lose their jobs because of the closure while CHHA was looking to repurpose others into different positions within the organization.

To clear out the remaining inventory, the store is running a clearance sale until its final business day on May 25.

From May 7 to 11, all remaining stock will be 50 per cent off. Then, from May 14 to 18, all stock will be 75 per cent off. The last few days of operation from May 21 to 25 will offer up anything that remains for free.

After May 25, Kruck said the store will likely be selling some larger items remaining in its inventory through its social media pages.

» cslark@brandonsun.com

» X: @ColinSlark