Retrofitting Toward Wholeness

Today, our team at Montage Development reached a meaningful milestone — submitting the final claim for Calling Ministries’ retrofit project. It’s a project I’ve been walking with since I joined the team last year.

In fact, it’s the first retrofit project started and completed under the CGAH program, both for our team and for Canada. There’s a quiet satisfaction in that — not just because a major part of the job is done, but because behind every claim, the numbers reflect the vocations of many — the faithful and fruitful labors of lives born of loves for building communities, renewing places, and helping make our planet more sustainable and whole.

The CGAH (Canada Greener Affordable Housing) program is a federal CMHC initiative that helps non-profit and co-operative housing providers renew aging buildings for a more sustainable future. It provides forgivable and repayable loans to improve energy performance, upgrade mechanical systems, and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by up to 90 percent.

For Calling Ministries, that vision took shape in the retrofit of their Dogwood and Cypress buildings — 36 senior-housing units built in the 1960s. The work was extensive: replacing gas systems with electric heat pumps, adding insulation and double-pane windows, renewing cladding, upgrading lighting and appliances, and introducing energy-recovery ventilation. These upgrades achieved over 60 percent greater energy efficiency and nearly 90 percent fewer greenhouse-gas emissions — but more importantly, they transformed daily life for residents: warmer in winter, cooler in summer, quieter, and healthier.

As I wrapped up the claim, I found myself reflecting on Calling Ministries’ history — how it began back in the early 1960s with a small group of devoted people of faith who were deeply committed to loving and serving their communities. They sought to steward the resources of land and community with love, building places where students, seniors, and others could belong and flourish. They understood the very root of their name, “Calling,” which comes from the Latin vocare — “to call” — the same root from which we get the word "vocation." For them, stewardship was a vocation expressed through the work of development — a way of building communities shaped by deeper callings to love and serve.

In the vision of the founders, I saw glimpses of what the vocation of development is meant to be — a calling rooted in a deeper purpose: to be deeply committed to the flourishing of our communities and cities. In the world as messy as it is, I hope that this work of ours will be just that — reimagining what our world should be and could be as we steward the reinvigorated resources and repurposed labor of ours toward the founders’ vision of renewed communities, renewed cities, and a renewed world that someday will be — where mutual prosperity is stewarded responsibly for the whole.