Entrepreneurship: Can You Handle It?

NOSDA AGM 2015 April 16, 2015

Committed to safe and affordable housing that improves the quality of life for Ontarians.

Who is HSC?

Serving Ontario's 1,400+ social housing providers and 47 service managers:

• Manage buildings more effectively 

• Improve the long-term sustainability of the physical assets

Strategic business areas:

• Energy Services • Insurance and Risk Management • Asset Management and Renewal • Information Technology Solutions • Community and Business

Partnerships

• 15-member stakeholder board

• Northern representatives on HSC Board:

oGary Scripnick (Chair) – Chair, NOSDA ; former City of Timmins Councillor

oWilliam Bradica – CAO, Thunder Bay DSSAB

oCatherine Matheson – General Manager, Community Development, City of Greater Sudbury

oCarol Conrad – CEO, Nipissing District Housing Corporation

Strong Northern Representation

Today’s Social Housing Reality

• Aging infrastructure

• End of design life

• Huge, growing demand for new builds

• Billions needed for old and new

• Critical need that is not going away

• Government funding challenges

Sector Opportunities

Entrepreneurship = Risk

Incremental: small improvements over time; e.g., process improvements, operational efficiencies

• Encourage creativity • Rethinking rules • Failure is okay• Manage risk

Fostering Entrepreneurship

Disruptive: transformative, system change, new business models, new markets; e.g., Facebook, Amazon, AirBnB, Uber

Less Risk

More Risk

The UK Experience

Orbit Group, UK•1980s: Thatcher upheaval•10k homes (1992) → 37k (2014)•Cross subsidy model•The Key: Commercial Revenue•£177M annual turnover•Capital markets•By 2020: Build 12k new homes •Profit for a purpose

Risk: The Dirty Word

“The biggest risk is not taking any risk... In a world that's changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks."

—Mark Zuckerberg, Founder, Facebook

The Path to Sector Entrepreneurship

Risk taking

Failure is ok

Commercial enterprises

Competition with private sector

Profit for a purpose

Entrepreneurship: Can YOU handle it?

What level of risk can you take?

What level of risk can you take?

Does your culture allow for failure?

Does your culture allow for failure?

Does your structure help or

hinder?

Does your structure help or

hinder?

Is there a better way to foster

entrepreneurship?

Is there a better way to foster

entrepreneurship?

A Parting Thought

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.

To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete”

-- Buckminster Fuller, architect and inventor

Thank you

© 2015 Housing Services Corporation

Howie WongCEO

P: 416-594-9325 ext. 252F: 416 594 9422 E: hwong@hscorp.ca