Affordable Housing Lab Results

In 2019, Leadership Waterloo Region began a partnership with The Waterloo Institute for Social Innovation and Resilience (WISIR) at the University of Waterloo and Wellbeing Waterloo Region (WWR) to raise the level of learning and broader community impact of the group project work featured in our Core Program

WISIR brings community stakeholders together around a complex problem and involves students in working through a process designed to breed systems innovation. In partnership, WISIR will be facilitating the project portion of each year’s class. WWR is a community collaborative to improve the wellbeing of residents in Waterloo Region. Through WWR, the community has addressed collective priorities that will improve community wellness so that everyone in our community can thrive.

The three big ideas that were identified as priority areas are: SocialInclusion, Healthy Children and Youth, and ALL IN 2020: Ending chronic homelessness. LWR supports both the Region of Waterloo’s Strategic Plan, as well as the Waterloo Region Economic Development Strategy. As such, the project focus for our Core Program Social Innovation Lab is Affordable Housing.

The project, lead by Kirsten Wright, brings experienced pedagogy into the program, raising the level of teaching in the class to include learnings in the areas of design thinking, community/systems mapping and enhanced problem-solving

Solutions from the Class of 2022 have been released! Check them out here. 

Looking for previous years? Check out the solutions developed by our Classes of 2020 and 2021!