City: Winnipeg, Canada

Reporting to: Manager of Strategic Planning

The Challenge

Vacant buildings in Winnipeg can serve as hubs for illegal activity—including repeated arson, trespassing, and theft. They also threaten public safety, reduce neighborhood appeal, lower property values, and increase insurance costs. And the problem is growing: vacant properties have increased by 30% in less than four years, rising from 543 in 2021 to 697 in July 2024. Moreover, this issue disproportionately affects some of the most impoverished neighborhoods in this diverse and multiethnic city.

To tackle this significant challenge, the city created a Problem Property Committee in 2022—now the Problem Property Taskforce—that includes interdepartmental and provincial government members. Based on recommendations from the committee turned taskforce, the City Council has passed motions that increase fees and inspections, and require higher quality materials to deter break-ins. Now, the city would like to take a more proactive, data-driven approach to managing this issue. Time and resources to undertake any data analysis and visualization such as heat maps, dashboards, or generate standardized reports are minimal at best and nonexistent at worst. Recognizing that the municipal databases focus on complaints and emergency responses following criminal activity, Winnipeg is looking to partner with neighborhood associations that have taken their own initiative—creating databases that better reflect a point-in-time visual confirmation of problem properties before any major damage occurs.

The fellow will build on this local work to use to their advantage in developing a comprehensive database of vacant, derelict, and problem properties in William Whyte—a neighborhood with an existing and highly involved neighborhood association that maintains a resident-led database to track problem properties. The project would include creating a standardized reporting structure to capture progress, for example in relation to the number of vacant homes, fires and repeat fires in vacant homes, thefts from vacant homes, rubble piles following fires, etc. The fellow would help draft and establish templates, tools, and approaches that could be applied to other neighborhoods across the city. By enhancing the city’s operational capacity to proactively address vacant properties, communicate progress, and understand root causes, the fellow’s work would be an essential part of strengthening the social and economic fabric of the entire city.

Winnipeg’s long-term development plan, called OurWinnipeg 2045, uses the sustainable development goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations in 2015, including social equity. This goal strives to distribute resources based on need rather than economic advantage, remove systemic barriers to provide equitable access to services, and recognizes a foundation of truth and reconciliation respecting Indigenous rights. Ultimately, addressing Winnipeg’s problem properties is essential to advancing social equity, combating systemic inequality, promoting sustainable growth, and improving residents’ quality of life. The fellow will play a crucial role in bringing this initiative to life.

Key questions include:

• Why are homes/properties initially being vacated, and how does this impact underserved groups specifically?

• Why are homes being left derelict by owners/landlords?

• Why are vacant/derelict homes targeted for theft and arson, and why are specific homes and neighborhoods repeatedly targeted?
• Why does it take so long to demolish properties that have been damaged beyond reasonable repair?
• What specific barriers can be eliminated to facilitate new construction on previously derelict lots?
• What is the correlation between illegal garbage and solid waste dumping and the remediation/clean-up of rubble piles that remain after demolishment?

What You’ll Do

The fellow would collaborate with a number of stakeholders over the summer, including multiple city departments—311, Property & Planning, Fire/Paramedic Service, Legal, Community Services, Water & Waste, and Assessment & Taxation—as well as external partners, such as the provincial government, neighborhood associations, nonprofits, and social enterprises. While neighborhood associations are gateways to residents (and association leadership are often residents themselves), the fellow will be expected to directly and comprehensively engage with both residents and landlords. Winnipeg is home to many diverse, multicultural, and multiethnic communities that are prepared to collaborate on this project, including a number of social enterprises and/or Indigenous-led groups that have yet to formally participate in discussions.

The fellow will compile best practices for municipal property tracking and work to create a more proactive database, based on neighborhood association findings in the William Whyte neighborhood. Key deliverables are:

• Research into how other cities track and report on vacant/derelict/problem properties, noting any cities who use data to support proactive approaches (proactive enforcement and/or social service delivery) to address the issue.

• Development of a comprehensive and valid database of all vacant/derelict/problem properties within the neighborhood’s boundaries. This database would be developed by working with city officials and the William Whyte neighborhood association and should reflect all properties, regardless of whether the property is subject to any inspections or enforcement notices/orders.
• Support of ongoing cross-departmental efforts around housing and problem properties as part of the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative Collaboration track. For example, the fellow will support the execution of key initiatives that emerge from the work.

• Recommendations of how to compile, analyze, and report on data that can be used in other neighborhoods in the future.

What You’ll Bring

• Data analysis
• Qualitative interviewing and analysis
• Stakeholder and community engagement
• Policy analysis
• Mapping (GIS)
• Process mapping