On July 18th, the CCEDNet – Manitoba staff team spent the warm and windy day alongside hundreds of volunteers swinging hammers as part of a week-long blitz to build Habitat for Humanity homes. It was fun, it was hard work, and it was inspiring to see so many dedicated people doing their part to reduce poverty in Winnipeg. I am so thankful that Habitat does all the hard work of organizing these events and mobilizing volunteers. The people on our teams were of diverse ages and backgrounds, including some amazing volunteers who dedicate their vacation time every summer to Habitat building projects. And driving home the whole purpose of the day was the presence of the proud, grateful, and energetic soon-to-be homeowner whose house we were constructing.

Since Habitat for Humanity was founded in Georgia in 1976 with the mission to reduce poverty through housing and homeownership, it has built and renovated more than 800,000 homes for over 4 million people, making them the largest non-profit builder in the world. In many communities, they also run social enterprises called Re-Stores that collectively generate millions of dollars for Habitat’s work. The first Re-Store was created in Winnipeg in 1991, and now there are 65 in Canada and 750 in the US.

This isn’t a charity model. Homeowners earn the home with a down payment of 350 – 500 hours of sweat equity and assume the mortgage payments and responsibilities. The collective effort simply makes it more affordable for families that would otherwise not be able to achieve homeownership.

While charity usually doesn’t address root causes of a complex problem such as poverty, the Habitat model enables homeownership – a permanent asset that creates long-term stability. Unlike a band-aid solution, the home ensures the family does not return to the same situation it was in before.

Eliminating poverty will require so much more than just housing (see The View From Here: Manitobans call for a poverty reduction plan), but it certainly is an important place to start. We also know that the need for affordable housing is so much greater than eight homes. As a start, we need thousands of new social housing units in Manitoba through a mix of co-operative, non-profit, and public housing. However, creating eight homes that didn’t exist before matters.

One of the unique features of the Habitat model is the opportunity for thousands of people to get involved in creating these solutions. Hopefully, it also deepens their understanding of why poverty exists in the first place, why Habitat needs to exist in a society as wealthy as ours, and that these dynamics exist because of the social and economic systems we as a society have constructed. Poverty is not inevitable. Poverty does not exist because there are not enough resources to go around in our world. It exists because of the systems and “rules” we have adopted that influence how the resources in our society are distributed. We have accepted a system where some people are simply excluded from the benefits of our society’s wealth. Mobilizing hundreds of citizens to build eight homes to change the lives of eight families in need (and hopefully the lives of the builders) is important and real, but we must never lose sight of the bigger picture. To that end, Habitat’s engagement with many thousands of interested North Americans is not only an excellent building opportunity, but a potential learning opportunity.

Housing is a human right. And yet, thousands of Manitobans do not have a place to live. The reasons for this societal failure are many and they are complex, as are the solutions. But every bit matters, and the opportunity for us to have a great day together doing something meaningful that will make a very long-term and real difference for eight families was something that was fantastic. We do our part where we can and with what we have – never losing sight of the fact that the full solutions to ending poverty will not be achieved 1 (or 8) house(s) at a time, but when we all decide that we are willing to share the resources required to end poverty and homelessness. It can happen, if we really want it to.

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Brendan Reimer is the Manitoba Regional Director for the Canadian CED Network. He is also the manager of CCEDNet’s Enterprising Non-Profits – Manitoba program and a member of the Social Enterprise Council of Canada.

A few weeks ago, over 100 people gathered at the Buy Social Canada Summit in Vancouver. One of the best lines of the day was from a procurement manager on deciding to pay a living wage for commercial cleaning contracts. This decision was made despite the fact that a living wage would be well above market rates in what is often an exploitive industry and would therefore cost the company more. She said it was a simple choice when they came to the conclusion “that we were not buying cleaning services, we were changing people’s lives!”

Social enterprise leaders, private sector and government procurement specialists, and many more spent a full day on June 17^th learning and thinking about how to change people’s lives through social purchasing at an even greater scale than we are now. Why? Because the social, economic, and environmental imperatives here and around the world demand it. We can no longer pretend that the world is not shaped by our economy, our economy unshaped by the enterprises in them, or the enterprises unshaped by our purchasing choices. The economy is a human construction, and as such, can change if we want to see change happen. The social enterprise sector is exploding around the world, but to achieve both scale of economic and social impact, the demand side for their goods and services must also grow.

Every time we spend a dollar we shape the world we live in. Our choices have impact both locally and around the world. The planet and the people on it bear the benefits and consequences of how we shape our economy, and we shape our economy through decisions we make when we spend our money.

We can chose to direct our purchasing impact to economic models that heal our planet rather than harm it, to farmers around the world paid fairly for their produce rather than to corporations that exploit those same farmers, to enterprises that create economic opportunities for those with barriers to employment rather than for those who already have a disproportionate share of societies wealth, and to businesses whose reason for being is to contribute to quality of life in our communities.

Like drops in a pond, each dollar has little influence on its own. But when millions of consumers, whether they are individuals, non-profits, businesses, or government, decide to shift their purchasing it can have a significant

impact on our economy and therefore on our society and planet. This will happen when we become more aware of the full impact, and the full value, of our purchasing options.

No longer are just price and quality part of the criteria; now the impact on the environment and on society more broadly can and should be calculated. With this full value analysis, options with good price and good quality do not represent the best purchasing choice for creating the world we want to live in if they have negative environmental and social impacts.

Think about it. The only reason many social enterprises exist is to create jobs for people that no-one else will hire. We have a choice to make, do we continue to relegate people to the margins of society, both socially and economically, and bear the justice, health, and social assistance costs that result? Or do we invest in something for them that is so much less costly: a job? Thousands of Canadians want to work, but face barriers to employment. Social enterprises can create the chance for them to gain experience, income, and dignity. However they can only exist as a business if they have customers. And if you and I and others buy goods and services from social enterprises they will continue to create the social impact they are pursuing, which benefits every one of us.

It was great to see the commitment from purchasers at the Buy Social Canada Summit to make this shift, it was great to see social enterprise leaders articulate their challenges and vision around growth, and it was simply wonderful to see such a large room full of people dedicated to making this happen.

As a concrete action towards this shift, the Summit marked the launch of a new branding mechanism called Buy Social Canada that will help to facilitate purchasing decisions towards positive environmental and social impacts. Based on a successful model from the UK, Buy Social Canada will certify both social enterprises and social purchasers in Canada and promote the growth of social procurement in Canada.

Yes, in some ways changing procurement policy and patterns is complicated. In other ways it is simple. Be thoughtful, think about real value, and act.

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Brendan Reimer is the Manitoba Regional Director for the Canadian CED Network. He is also the manager of CCEDNet’s Enterprising Non-Profits – Manitoba program and a member of the Social Enterprise Council of Canada.