Preparedby:Naheyawin
This is one in a series of Strategic Learning Briefs written 12 months after the launch of the first Community Animation Service pilot at Edgemont Flats Apartments. The other Strategic Learning Briefs, focussing on supporting Indigenous and disability inclusion, can be found on our project webpage: www.skillssociety.ca/projects/thecommunity-animator
The Community Animation Service is a part time, paid position that draws on asset based community development and systemic design approaches to nurture community connections amongst residents living within Apartment Buildings in Edmonton. Working 68 hours per week, the Community Animator strives to create meaningful experiences with residents rather than doing programming for them. The concept was co-created with community members, emerging from The Future of Home: Inclusive Housing Solutions Lab. This 18 month social innovation process brought people with disabilities, allies, service providers, housing providers and developers, and architects together to ideate around how to support inclusive, accessible, and affordable housing and support models for people with intellectual disabilities.
Edgemont Flats is a new apartment complex situated on Treaty 6 territory near Enoch Cree Nation lands. Its residents include Indigenous families from Enoch Cree Nation, newcomers to Canada, young professionals, growing families, and seniors – a community diverse in background, still forming the connections that make a building feel like home.
In 2024, Skills Society launched a Community Animator pilot at Edgemont Flats through their Action Lab, in partnership with Leston Holdings and with funding from the City of Edmonton's Community Safety and Wellbeing Intervention/Early Intervention Grant.
The pilot emerged from the Future of Home Lab, a social innovation process that asked what housing and support models might look like if they centred belonging for people with developmental disabilities. That work surfaced a clear insight: a house becomes a home through reciprocal relationships. Neighbours who know each other's names, who stop by to chat, who can be invited over – these connections transform shelter into something more.
The Community Animator role was designed to nurture those connections.
Naheyawin joined to support engagement with Indigenous residents, particularly those from Enoch Cree Nation.
Edgemont Flats has a formal housing partnership with Enoch Cree Nation that reserves a portion of units for Nation members. Supporting those residents to feel at home was a particular priority – but early community-building activities had drawn little participation from Indigenous residents, and the project team recognised that deeper engagement required cultural knowledge and relationships they did not have.
We came to help establish relationships with Elders and Knowledge Keepers, to mentor the Community Animator in Indigenous engagement, and to develop an approach that could inform similar work elsewhere.
This brief reflects on what we learned – some of it specific to Indigenous engagement, some of it about the broader challenge of how community forms in places like this.
Early in the project, we recognised that typical community-building frameworks –even thoughtful ones – often treat Indigenous perspectives as content to add rather than foundations that might reshape the work itself. We wanted something different: a foundation in Indigenous wisdom that could guide community animation for everyone.
We developed an approach centred on mâmawi-pimâtisiwin (ᒫᒪᐏᐱᒫᑎᓯᐏᐣ), a Cree concept meaning "collective way of life."
This framework draws on the six nêhiyawak seasons as a guide for understanding how community initiatives naturally develop – from early emergence through planning, action, reflection, and celebration. Rather than imposing artificial timelines, the seasonal approach recognises that ideas gather strength in their own time, that reflection deserves as much attention as activity, and that celebration sustains momentum.
This was an orienting philosophy rather than an operational blueprint We understood from the outset that fully bringing this framework to life would take years of relationship and practice.
The goal for this first phase was to introduce the concepts, begin building the relationships that would give them meaning, and create conditions for the community to grow into the approach over time.
Central to the approach was the Cultural Guidance Circle: a gathering bringing together Elders, Knowledge Keepers, and residents to ensure community activities unfold with cultural respect and meaningful inclusion.
The Circle's role was to offer wisdom about protocols, insight about barriers to participation, and guidance on building connection across difference.
A separate team of resident volunteers would handle practical logistics – coordinating events, managing supplies – so that the Circle could focus on cultural guidance rather than logistics.
Naheyawin also provided mentorship for the Community Animator hired by Skills Society during the project.
We worked to build the Animator's relationships with Elders, their understanding of protocols, and their confidence in holding space for culturally grounded gatherings
The goal was to cultivate relationships and capacities that would deepen over time –roots rather than a rulebook.
Mid-way through the pilot, Skills Society surveyed Edgemont residents about their interests and preferences.
Many residents preferred ways of connecting that didn't require showing up at a specific time – contributing when they could, engaging at their own pace.
Residents also expressed interest in creative workshops, shared meals, and opportunities for mutual aid. Indigenous residents specifically mentioned interest in ceremonies and cultural programming. Nearly half said they wanted to help their neighbours.
Building relationships with Elders and Knowledge Keepers from Enoch Cree Nation required patience and protocol.
We connected with a Knowledge Keeper from the Nation who agreed to support the Cultural Guidance Circle, bringing additional Knowledge Keepers to share wisdom and ceremony.
These conversations moved at their own pace – Knowledge Keepers carry many responsibilities, and we learned to wait, to follow up gently, to let relationship develop without forcing timelines.
By June, we had secured participation for the first Circle, along with guidance on appropriate protocols – tobacco offerings, honouraria, the importance of food shared together.
In mid-June, we held the first Cultural Guidance Circle.
The Knowledge Keepers led a smudging ceremony and opening prayer. Residents sat together, shared stories about places that had felt like home, and listened as Elders reflected on what they heard.
The gathering exceeded expectations. The room filled beyond capacity. People spoke with surprising openness. The talking circle format created space for genuine sharing. Voices were balanced; no one dominated The Elders were warm and inclusive, and a teaching about wolves emerged that resonated with the group.
But the composition of the room was notable. Most attendees were people experiencing some form of marginalisation – isolation, disability, difficult life transitions. Fewer Enoch Cree Nation residents attended than we had hoped.
When we asked the lead Knowledge Keeper afterward what would help more Indigenous residents engage, the answer was simple: "Keep doing this They will come over time"
As the Community Animator stepped into the role, the distance between framework and practice became clear.
The building's design – like most contemporary apartments – offered few natural gathering spots or spaces for spontaneous connection. The pilot revealed how much time relational work actually requires. The hours allocated for the role created real constraints on what was possible. And many residents the Animator met were navigating circumstances that made sustained involvement difficult –chronic health conditions, overwhelming life situations, the daily weight of getting by.
Some approaches worked well:
A community board in the lobby generated steady engagement – residents contributing ideas, responding to others, participating without the pressure of showing up at a specific time.
The barbecue in August, designed to emphasise meaningful connection over spectacle, brought people together around food and simple activities.
The Animator's consistent presence –showing up weekly, knocking on doors, learning names – began building the relational foundation the work required.
The Cultural Guidance Circle model held promise but needed more time to establish rhythm. What became clear was that this work moves slowly – relationship by relationship, conversation by conversation –
and that pace sits uneasily with project timelines and grant cycles.
This project began with a question:
If community forms through reciprocal relationships, what does it take to nurture them?
We come away with observations rather than answers.
Relational work moves at the speed of trust, which is slower than the speed of projects. Grant cycles, reporting timelines, and organisational planning all assume a pace that trust does not follow.
This creates real tension – pressure to demonstrate progress, to show results, to point to something that happened. Relationships cannot be rushed into existence. They emerge from repeated contact, consistent presence, and the slow accumulation of reliability. The work is showing up again, and again, and again, even when you cannot tell whether anything is taking hold.
Funders and organisations will need to tolerate that uncertainty, or they will pull the work toward activity for its own sake.
ThePullTowardtheVisible
Throughout this project, there was a constant pull toward activities: events to host, programs to run, things to count. This pull makes sense. Activities feel like progress. They give people something to show. They fit into reports.
What we were actually working toward is harder to see. It is neighbours who know each other's names. It is someone who checks in when they haven't seen you in a while. It is the trust that lets people ask for help.
Activities can create the conditions for this, but they are not the same thing. The confusion is easy to fall into and requires ongoing attention.
A pattern emerged. The people most drawn to community spaces – and most present when they arrived – were often people managing difficult circumstances. Isolation, chronic health conditions, major transitions.
We saw this at the Cultural Guidance Circle, where people listened fully and held space for one another in ways that felt rare. We saw it in the Community Animator's conversations, where interest was high but capacity for ongoing commitment was limited
And yet the capacities these residents demonstrated – attention, patience, willingness to witness without rushing to fix –are exactly what community asks of people.
If the people most drawn to this work are also the people least able to show up in conventional, sustained ways, how do we create forms of participation that meet them where they are?
This raises deeper questions about where we look when we imagine who might hold a community together.
A pattern emerged. The people most drawn to community spaces – and most present when they arrived – were often people managing difficult circumstances. Isolation, chronic health conditions, major transitions.
We saw this at the Cultural Guidance Circle, where people listened fully and held space for one another in ways that felt rare. We saw it in the Community Animator's conversations, where interest was high but capacity for ongoing commitment was limited.
And yet the capacities these residents demonstrated – attention, patience, willingness to witness without rushing to fix –are exactly what community asks of people.
If the people most drawn to this work are also the people least able to show up in conventional, sustained ways, how do we create forms of participation that meet them where they are?
This raises deeper questions about where we look when we imagine who might hold a community together.
The question now is whether we can build structures that honour these realities –structures patient enough for trust, flexible enough for the people who show up, and clear enough to sustain support over time.
We do not have answers yet. We are asking better questions.
This work was made possible by the generosity and trust of many people.
The Knowledge Keepers from Enoch Cree Nation shared their wisdom, their time, and their patience They reminded us that this work moves at its own pace, and that showing up matters more than showing results.
The Community Animator brought care and persistence to the role, building relationships one conversation at a time.
Skills Society Action Lab held the vision for this work and created space for it to unfold as it needed to.
Leston Holdings supported the pilot and opened doors to the Enoch Cree Nation partnership. The City of Edmonton's Community Safety and Wellbeing Intervention/Early Intervention Grant provided the funding that made this pilot possible.
And the residents of Edgemont Flats who showed up – to circles, to conversations, to
to the slow work of becoming neighbours –made it real.
kinanâskomitin Thank you
After one year piloting the Community Animation Service at Edgemont Flats, we're learning that building community in apartments requires more than programming events - it requires creating conditions where community can emerge organically.
This means investing in formal infrastructure (the container), the Animator's activation work (the spark), and supporting the living community that residents create together (the fire). It means valuing slow trust-building over efficiency, small moments over large events, and resident leadership over programmed outcomes. And fundamentally, it means treating housing as more than a commodity - as the foundation for belonging and home.
Promising signals include strong resident leadership emerging, measurable increases in belonging and satisfaction, successful passive animation (like the community board), and activation of residents' natural helping orientation.
Important learning edges remain: extending and deepening resident engagement, developing a sustainable business model that supports replication and scaling, strengthening communication to residents, and continuing to create diverse entry points or resident participation.
The service is now launching at a second site with Civida, offering crucial opportunities to test whether these learnings hold in different contexts We continue to watch, learn, and adapt - designing the map as we go, guided by what actually builds community rather than what's easy to measure.
