Speakers
Nicholas Gazzard
Executive Director
Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada
Website: www.fhcc.coopConference theme:
Public services - healthcare, daycare, homecare, education, housing
"I am participating in the International Summit of Cooperatives because…"
“I am participating in the International Summit of Cooperatives because I hope it will provide us with an opportunity to fully explore the potential for the growth of co-operative forms of enterprise, from the local to the multinational level, in the 21st century.”
Biography
Nicholas Gazzard has served as the Executive Director of the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada for the past 7 years. His previous experience includes 6 years in a senior management position with CHF Canada and 10 years as Executive Director of COHO, a management services group for housing co-ops in British Columbia.
Nicholas first became involved in the co-operative movement in his 20s when he co-founded a retail food co-op in his native London, England. He currently serves as vice-president of the board of directors of ICA Housing, the global housing sectoral group of the International Co-operative Alliance. He has more than 30 years' experience in co-op housing, including close to 20 years as a housing co-op member and 5 years as a trustee and officer of the Federal Co-operative Housing Stabilization Fund, a trust that provided loans to housing co-ops to assist them in their operations. He served on the CHF Canada board in the 1990s.
He also chairs the board of Social Housing Services Corporation Financial Inc, an investment fund manager for the reserves of social housing providers in Ontario. He lives in Ottawa.
About the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada (CHF)
CHF Canada is a co-operative association that serves as the organized voice of co-operative housing in Canada. Founded in 1968 as the Co-operative Housing Foundation of Canada, its mission was to win the federal government's support for non-profit co-operative housing development. CHF Canada's early success can be measured by the 2,200 housing co-ops that operate in Canada today, providing 92,000 co-operative homes for Canadians.
As the movement developed, CHF Canada's focus turned more towards operational support for the growing number of housing co-ops across the country. In the 1980s the association renamed itself the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada to better reflect its evolving mandate.
Today, more than 900 housing co-ops across the country form CHF Canada's direct membership base, along with regional organizations that provide services to them. Another 1,200 co-ops in Quebec affiliate indirectly through the Confédération québecoise des coopératives d'habitation. CHF Canada provides a broad range of education and training services to its members, a suite of member insurance programs, and assistance to individual co-operatives experiencing operating challenges. As it has done since its founding, CHF Canada continues to represent and defend the interests of the co-operative housing movement before government.
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