Alexandra Wilson is a name that is almost synonymous with the co-op sector not just in Toronto, but in Canada and beyond. Alexandra lives the co-operative principles in everything she does. Indeed, her LinkedIn profile lists all the major senior co-op housing jobs and volunteer positions in the wider co-op sector the country and it only goes back 30 years!
Alexandra started her career earlier as a housing activist in the 1970s. Some of her notable early achievements include: turning her home rental community into the Bain Apartments Co-operative at age 18; becoming Bain’s manager two years after that; and a few years later, playing a pivotal role in converting a seniors’ residence into a co-op in the former city of York, a story that is featured in a film, The Battle of Beech Hall.
In 1978, Wilson joined a group of young activists who had come together four years earlier to form the Co-operative Housing Federation of Toronto. When CHFT became too large to operate as a collective, Alexandra Wilson emerged as its first Executive Director. During her time with CHFT, Alexandra developed several new housing co-operatives and created the infrastructure necessary for an organization to meet the expectations of a growing housing co-op community in Toronto.
In the late 80s, she moved to Ottawa with then-husband and fellow co-op housing advocate, Mark Goldblatt, who’d accepted a position as the Executive Director of CHF Canada. After a short period of consulting in the broader co-op sector, she accepted the role of CHF Canada’s ED herself, a position she stayed in for 15 years. During that time, federal and provincial governments stopped investing in co-op housing. Alexandra led the sector through the re-focusing from development to serving the co-ops developed in the previous 20 years and a consolidation of the sector through a merger with the Co-operative Housing Association of Ontario.
In 2005, she left CHF Canada to lead a newly formed organization that she designed. The Agency for Co-operative Housing is an arm’s length body that works under contract to CMHC to manage CMHC’s long-term agreements with federal housing co-ops. During her 16 years at the Agency, among other things, she ensured co-ops had the support they needed as they came to the end of their operating agreements.
Although retired now, Alexandra is a director on an impressive list of boards, including The Co-operators, the Funeral Co-operative of Ottawa, the International Co-operative Alliance, the Canadian Co-operative Investment Fund, and the CHFT Development Society.
The Co-operators celebrated Alexandra Wilson as a Co-operators Woman in History in 2019. On that occasion, Wilson summarized what has motivated her:
If you want to make the world – or even your small corner of it – a better place, start by asking yourself what needs to be done; don’t wait for someone else to tell you what that is. At the end of your career, you should be able to say that you’ve given your time and talents to a useful purpose and done your best work.
Alexandra Wilson was named a Lifetime Member of CHFT in 1997 and has continued to make a considerable contribution of time and talents in the decades since.
