End Poverty Edmonton starts next chapter with question marks

An organization with a mandate to fight poverty is refocusing on its roots and adding coworking to its mix as funding from the City of Edmonton slips through the hourglass.

"The community sort of lost confidence in knowing what it was working on and its governance structure," Jen Casorso said of End Poverty Edmonton, the resurrected organization where she is now managing director.

End Poverty Edmonton was born out of a mayoral task force in 2014. The city published its first roadmap document in 2016, with a vision to end poverty in Edmonton in a generation, or about 30 years.

City funding reached a peak of $2.1 million annually in 2021, but an audit that same year led city council to withhold $600,000 pending a review. Council decided in 2024 to incrementally wind down funding through 2026, the end of the budget cycle, and the board announced it would cease operations.

All 10 staff departed at the time, but the board held listening engagements in 2024 to see if there was a desire to regroup, which is how Casorso was hired as one of three current staff, she told Taproot.

"There was enough hope that End Poverty Edmonton could realign its activities and its work and go back to its true, original purpose, which was about being a movement builder and focused on eliminating poverty in a generation," she said. "They knew they needed someone to help with the reimagining of the organization, which has been how I came into this role."

Step 1 was to reformalize the organization's purpose, which resulted in a new Theory of Change, a living document meant to draw EPE back its roots with greater transparency. It focuses on three "horizons," Casorso said. The first is to understand the status quo of poverty; the second is to reckon with affordability issues; and the third is to stimulate collective prosperity.

"'Community wealth' is looking at localized circulation of our economy, making it more inclusive, making sure that everyone has their needs met, and has access to participate in generating their own wealth," Casorso said.

In terms of operational wealth, End Poverty Edmonton is looking at other revenue sources to subsist on — starting with the Affordability Futures coworking/lab/think-tank project.

Coworking allows people or organizations to rent space within a space. The range of services typically runs from hot desking (i.e. access to a common area with internet) to closed-door offices. It can also come with perks like coffee or beer, conference room access, or permission to hold events, but a big part of it is the opportunity to break the isolation of working from home.

"When coworking really started, entrepreneurs said that they were really lonely and working on their own, and so it was a place for all entrepreneurs," said Hannah Hemphill, the narrative and think-tank lead for End Poverty Edmonton.

Hemphill, who "built a space before there was a name for cowork in Edmonton" in the 2000s, told Taproot she has seen the coworking landscape shift.

"I think that we're seeing a few more coworking spaces now, after the pandemic, because of the obvious office space issue," she said. "Either people gave up their office space during the pandemic, or with something like EPE, where we have additional office space now, how do we activate it?"

Plus, as an organization providing "connective tissue," as Casorso put it, Affordability Futures may provide more value than simply revenue.

"Cowork in this kind of think-tank space made sense for me," she said. "We could create another collision point for people, where then they're building a sense of community, and we're talking about issues that matter to us. And, 'Oh, heck! — maybe there's space for us to partner on a particular initiative or project.'"

Affordability Futures is purpose-driven, as a growing number of cowork spaces are. For example, Walkthrough Collaborative Centre is for game-makers, Antigoni Studios is looking for a space for femtech, and the Social Impact Innovation Hub is vying for a space for its titular purpose.

The Alberta Association of Immigrant Serving Agencies is among the early members at the Affordability Futures/End Poverty Edmonton space at Unit 1, 10110 107 Street NW, in the same building as Audreys Books. And occupancy is growing, Hemphill said.

Yet coworking is not lucrative on its own. Costs add up quickly compared to what one can reasonably charge. It's just one piece of how End Poverty Edmonton plans to pay the bills, Hemphill added.

Future funding from the city is "still up for conversation," Casorso said, despite council's divestment decision in 2024.

The organization keeps in touch with the city, Hemphill said in an email, citing a June 23 lunch-and-learn with other non-profits hosted by councillors Keren Tang and Anne Stevenson.

Tang feels the non-profit's work behind the front lines fills "an important role and a gap for the city to support in the community, not just service provision," she told Taproot in an email. "I remain open to a budget conversation so that this work can continue on in a sustainable, system-focused, and impactful way."

Council will decide the 2027-2030 budget this fall.