talkoo [talh-koo] Finnish expression.
The gathering of friends and neighbors to build something
Talkoo Homes is a nonprofit developer with a mission to house the most vulnerable.
We focus on three main groups: the homeless, indigenous, and women and children fleeing domestic violence.
But this wasn’t always the case.
When I started my first development company in 2014, my goal was to build luxury condos.
I was like most developers: greedy, profit driven, and unmoved by the affordability crisis. But working in NYC, I witnessed the scourge of social housing. Take for example, Fulton Houses, a 945 unit housing project in Manhattan. Built in 1965, the buildings have deteriorated and routinely experience no hot water, mold, and heating issues. Across the street are the Google headquarters, a building worth over $1 billion where the average employee can make $123,000 a year. How is it that the richest city in the world can allow this level of inequality?
When Hurricane Sandy destroyed thousands of homes (mostly in poorer neighborhoods), I realized just how shoddy, construction methods were. Hurricane Ida drowned and killed 40 New Yorkers, many of whom lived in illegal basement suites because they were the only homes they could afford.
None of this would’ve happened if housing was affordable and well maintained. But this presents a problem: subsidized rents fail to pay for maintenance costs leading to disrepair. So how can you have housing that’s both affordable and high quality?
The solution came when I moved back to Edmonton and did some research: prefabricated concrete homes.
We found and partnered with an overseas manufacturer who invented one with special features:
8 hour install time. Eco friendly concrete. Factory built to ensure the highest quality. And 1/3rd less costly than our competitors. Modular is expensive even compared to a wood framed house (about $300 per sq.ft compared to a stick built house at $130–180).
By using this technology and business model, our mission statement became clear:
We are in business to shelter the world
What does this mean?
Our guiding principle is the belief that everyone has access to safe, affordable housing.
And when we say “everyone”, we really mean it. From the unhoused, women escaping domestic violence, LGBTQ youth disowned by their parents, hospital patients…
We provide housing regardless of your income, age, orientation or race.
Despite our goal of housing “everyone” the main focus is on the unhoused and anyone who spends more than 30% of their income on rent—the people long neglected by the housing market.
Most developers like Mattamy Homes do not build for this demographic. The market caters to “middle class housing”. Even the government proudly proclaimed their plan to build 100,000 middle class homes — as if the poor didn’t exist.
It doesn’t help when the Liberals and Conservatives have failed to stop the flood of foreign buyers bidding up home prices. Nor did they stop speculation from corporate interests, hedge funds, and house flippers. Now Canada is home to one of the most expensive property markets in the world.
Talkoo Homes stands against all of this because we believe that
Housing is for shelter, not speculation
We mentioned in the beginning that talkoo means the gathering of friends and neighbors to build something. Think of the Amish building a farm together. In Finland, the talkoo could be anything from repairing a local church, sprucing up the playground, or babysitting your neighbor’s kid.
For us, this isn’t utopian fluff.
Inspired by Habitat For Humanity’s model, we require our future residents to contribute at least 10 hours to the construction of their homes.
We also believe in community building — not cookie cutter suburbs.
Traditional single family developments are dominated by wide streets, big driveways, poor walkability and lack of greenspaces.
Our design philosophy is the opposite: we cluster our homes in “pods” surrounded by trees and shrubs. Effekt, a Danish architecture firm designed a community just like this:
Instead of paving wide, asphalt streets, we use gravel instead. This results in less CO2 emissions and lower maintenance.
The pod design ensures that every house is facing a communal courtyard. This fosters a sense of community while reducing the need for big, useless front yards.
Homes built for ECO, not EGO.
McMansions. Wide streets. Cul-de-sacs. Big driveways and front yards. All aspects of an ego driven housing culture. And it’s unsustainable. Urban sprawl and suburbs means higher infrastructure costs, property taxes, more roads, and destruction of nature. Bigger homes also create bigger carbon footprints.
How do we combat that? By building “regenerative villages".
With 1–3 kWh solar panels, all of our homes become Net Zero. Federal grants make them more affordable than ever. Each home comes with a Rheem tankless electric water heater which are 99.8% efficient. Our HVAC systems are carbon free mini splits. Garbage is collected in situ and used to generate biofuel while composting is done communally. We are even considering installing composting toilets in all of our homes.
OK, but what about concrete? Isn’t it notorious for belching out CO2 emissions? Yup. But it also has big advantages over wood framed homes. Concrete insulates better due to its density. This means less heat gets in during summer, and less cold during winter.
Our prefab homes also use 5x less concrete than conventional concrete structures thanks to our proprietary technology. They are soundproof, fireproof (rated up to 2–3 hours), and can withstand a 9.0 earthquake; crucial especially after witnessing the devastating earthquakes in Turkey:
Why beauty matters
In a recent 60 minutes episode featuring MASS Design Group, co-founder Michael Murphy said:
Beauty matters. Spaces around us that are designed with beauty say that we matter as individuals.
He was talking about a hospital he design in Rwanda. Like most charity built hospitals in Africa, beauty is the last thing on the builder’s mind. Who cares whether the hospital looks nice when they need more ventilators instead?
But MASS (a non-profit architecture firm) believes all buildings should be designed with beauty. Think about it:
Would you display the Mona Lisa in an art gallery? Would you house the President of the US in a shack? Why did Apple spend billions to build a modern, spaceship looking headquarters?
Because architecture sends a silent message to everyone walking into any place. It tells you what to expect and who is important.
The US Capitol building. Parliament Hill. The Louvre. All beautiful structures that symbolize power, permanence, and knowledge.
Beauty has positive side effect as well: when people think buildings are beautiful, they take care of them. When the Notre Dame burned down, over a billion dollars was raised to restore it.
But beauty isn’t just about looks and status.
A pair of researchers conducted a study of how greenspaces affect behavior.
They randomly placed tenants of a Chicago housing project in apartments with barren views and apartments with views of greenery.
The tenants with views of greenspace were nicer neighbors, committed less crime, and exhibited less fear.
Another study demonstrated the healing effects of beauty. A researcher placed a group of patients recovering from gall bladder surgery in rooms with views of brick, and the other half in rooms with views of trees.
The patients with the green views healed 25% faster. Even in places of suffering like prisons, gardening reduced recidivism by 40%.
This is why our housing projects (especially those for the unhoused) include greenhouses like this one from Arctic Acres:
Our upcoming projects take this a step further with vertical farms and hydroponics — crucial for sustainability.
So why is all this important? Because the homeless and low income families are disproportionately affected by bad architecture and urban planning.
Homeless shelters and social housing are victims of “hostile architecture”. The result: they’ve become dumping grounds for the poor. It’s no wonder residents are against supportive housing in their backyard.
That’s not always the case. Unlike housing projects in the US, public housing in Vienna is known for being well maintained and beautiful:
The obvious culprit must be cost. It’s not like pricey Starchitects like Bjarke Ingels would design beautiful, affordable housing. Well…
This is Dortheavej Residence, an affordable housing project in Denmark designed by none other than Bjarke Ingels himself.
Our prefab homes are built around the concept that beauty can inspire and heal. The same way politicians are when they enter the Capitol building, or the student wandering the Louvre. Why should the homeless deserve any less? If there’s anyone else who needs inspiration and hope more, it’s them. We build beautiful, affordable homes for this very reason. If you were homeless, would you prefer living here:
Or here?
Housing has a multiplier effect. Imagine you are homeless. The step ladder of survival stretches longer the more you stay on the streets—an endless scramble for food and shelter. Most of us are fortunate to have both. This affords us a life where we can dream freely. We dream of going to college. Starting a new career. Making babies. But the unhoused can only dream of hot meals and a roof over their heads each night.
Talkoo Homes' mission is to shelter the world — because once you accomplish that, the dreams that build our world can come true.
The housing crisis is not a comfortable problem. If it was, it would already be solved. A corporation would swoop in, do everything with factory efficiency and mass produce a low cost solution. But they haven’t.
Until now.
We acknowledge the hard working families living paycheck to paycheck, the homeless, our youth, and society who are waiting for someone to take risks. Because solving a problem this big is never risk-free.
They want us to experiment, innovate, explore, and even fail. Because all of that is worth the effort to build affordable housing. And that’s exactly what Talkoo Homes has set out to do.
We sincerely hope that you join us in our endeavor and help us to shelter the world.
