When Harvey graduated from the University of Toronto in the recession of the early 1980s, he was keen to get a job – any job. So, when CHFT offered him a federal youth employment position overseeing a team of energy retrofit workers, he took it. He couldn’t know the spark it would ignite that grow into the career-long flame of passion for affordable housing.
Before long, under the mentorship of fellow-life-time member, Mark Goldblatt, Harvey would be a full-on co-op housing flag-waver in a member services role where he stayed for a couple of years. Co-ops were fast becoming more than his profession though – he soon moved into Alexander Park Co-op and met its manager, Tom Clement. As with so many of those bonds forged so long ago, Harvey and Tom remain friends to today.
After CHFT, Harvey took a job as the manager at Main Gerrard Co-op where he stayed for over four years. Next, his career took him to a national co-op association, designing education programs for kids, and then to the Co-operative Housing Association of Ontario (CHAO), where he was the Manager of Co-op Success. When CHAO merged with CHF Canada, he worked closely with then government relations (GR) manager, Michael Shapcott. It was a heady time for CHF Canada as it rallied co-op members to resist the federal government’s plans to download responsibility for housing co-ops to the provinces. Harvey headed up the branch of the campaign centred on Sudbury, home of the then-minister responsible for housing. His efforts, along with the rest of the national campaign were successful – no download. But more than that, Harvey was on the path to succeeding Shapcott as CHF Canada’s GR guy, a role he played until he became Managing Director of CHF Canada’s Ontario Region, and then CHF Canada’s Deputy Executive Director, a position he retired from full-time work in August 2020. Harvey continues to have a connection to housing through a GR consultancy role with Habitat for Humanity GTA.
Harvey’s strong connection to the sector has left him with views on the secret to successful co-ops: respect others, always put the community ahead of any specific issue, and deal with issues quickly before they grow into problems. He encourages co-opers to think of themselves as privileged to live in their communities and to develop and maintain those communities as the public assets they are. He encourages the sector to be bold and to seize the current opportunity to get more co-ops built, using existing co-ops as a demonstration of how that public asset can sustain itself.
Harvey is proud of the accomplishments he made in advancing the interests of co-ops politically, and doing so in a non-partisan, respectful, and neutral way. He knows lobbying on behalf of co-ops brings with it two clear advantages: the sector has co-op spaces to use to bring politicians into the community; and the members – voters themselves – who can sway decision-makers to see things their way. With Harvey’s mentorship, many other sector leaders have learned these lessons as well as how imperative it is to approach elected officials with a limited number of clear asks – and with a smile, always a smile. Just as Harvey Cooper has. In recognition of his considerable contribution, CHFT’s board named Harvey a lifetime member in 2019.
