The Balanced Supply of Housing presented a Research in Progress webinar, Building Momentum: Overcoming Barriers to Non-Profit Housing in Montreal on Wednesday, April 23, 2025. Adam Mongrain and Ines Zerrouki from BSH community partner organization, Vivre en Ville, and Dr. Nik Luka, BSH Central Coordinating Committee member and Professor at McGill University, presented key findings from new research on strategies for overcoming obstacles to non-profit housing in the Montreal area.
Watch the recording to learn how the sector is moving from historic roadblocks to promising new solutions, shaping a more accessible and resilient housing market.
This research is part of BSH’s Overcoming Institutional Obstacles to Non-Market Housing Production in Montréal project.
About the Speakers
Alina McKay is a housing researcher and the Research Manager for the Housing Research Collaborative and Balanced Supply of Housing at UBC’s Peter Allard School of Law. She completed her Masters in Sociology, and PhD in Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on the links between housing security and wellbeing.
Adam Mongrain is Housing policy director at Vivre en Ville, a public interest non-profit organization advocating for sustainable land use and thriving communities. Vivre en Ville has established itself as an innovative and indispensable broker for local governments, developers and community stakeholders in Quebec, and is increasingly looked to as a promising model across Canada. Over the past years, Adam and his team have documented barriers to housing affordability in densely built environments, and ways to reframe the problem in cultural and political rather than urbanistic terms.
Dr. Nik Luka is based at McGill University, where he is cross-appointed to two professional schools (Architecture and Urban Planning) as well as the Associate Director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Montréal. As an ethnographer, his work in research and professional practice focuses on the (re)production of everyday space, including the deliberate policy-led remaking of cities and suburbs, and he is especially intrigued by narrative, representations, text, and discourse. His work addresses general themes familiar to architects, landscape architects, planners, and geographers: housing, infrastructure, public space, cultural landscapes, urban design, and deliberative democracy. Dr Luka has worked in close collaboration with civil-society organizations and state agencies on co-production through community-based design for almost 25 years.
Ines Zerrouki is a Housing Policy Advisor at Vivre en Ville, where she conducts research and develops content on housing policy and market dynamics. With a background in urban planning, communications, and real estate development, she is passionate about public policy, social inclusion, and housing market behavior. She holds a bachelor’s degree in urban planning from Université de Montréal and is a candidate for professional certification with the Ordre des urbanistes du Québec (OUQ). With her interdisciplinary expertise, Inès is committed to advancing sustainable, inclusive, and evidence-based housing policies that shape resilient communities.
