News and Updates

Centretown has changed a lot in 40 years – and we like to think we’ve played a big role in that. You can’t walk more than a few blocks in this neighborhood without seeing a CCOC property, and you can’t spend much time around here without seeing CCOC tenants out in the neighbourhood. Of course, […]

I found this poster while walking to work one day. I took some love. And over the course of a week, I watched as all of the love was taken. Which sounds sad, but it wasn’t, because the poster (sans stubs) still offered all the love anyone needed! The City of Ottawa has a great […]

Jesse Winchester, Stan Rogers, Colleen Peterson, Ron Hynes, Roy Forbes, Ferron, Stephen Fearing. The names are a who’s who of legendary Canadian singer/songwriters from just a decade or two ago.  Some are sadly gone, others still in full voice. Exquisite lyrical and musical chops aside, these and many other performers of the era had a […]

Twenty-two years ago CCOC started a pretty cool thing: giving away flowers to tenants. Our original motivations were pretty pragmatic: it was cheaper for us to buy all our tenants some pretty annuals than it was to hire professional landscapers. The program has expanded a lot since 1992. We’ve added perennials, we’ve added herbs and vegetables, […]

We’re proud that tenants at CCOC have a say in how their housing is run. As a tenant and member directed organization, tenants are always part of how we make big decisions. One example of this is our no-smoking policy. In January 2010, two tenants who are also members of CCOC gave us a resolution […]

Ottawa has started the biggest infrastructure project in its history, and it’s happening in our backyard! CCOC has about 110 homes in the Lebreton Flats area – bordered by Booth, Albert, Rochester and Primrose Streets. We’ve got a couple of century old buildings, along with townhomes and an apartment building that we built in 1981, […]

“We need a national housing plan — one that includes the creation of new affordable housing opportunities and maintains our existing social housing units.” That was the message from Linda Jeffrey, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, when she visited CCOC’s 258 Lisgar on National Housing Day last November. Properties like 258 Lisgar benefitted from […]

We lit a fire at one of our properties earlier in the Fall. Don’t worry – it was on purpose.   We held a mortgage-burning party at 258 Lisgar, a building we bought 35 years ago and one that has seen us through many years of growth and expansion. In fact, 258 Lisgar itself was […]

Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation (CCOC) is very proud to announce that it has received recognition at both the local and international levels in the past week for its innovative new housing development at Beaver Barracks in downtown Ottawa. In late May, the Building and Social Housing Foundation announced that CCOC has been selected as one […]

Endless meetings, phoney consultations with “the community”, interpreting the meaning of “tall” or “compatible” – that is the life of an affordable housing promoter! CCOC has a Mission (did you know?) to create, maintain and promote housing for low and modest income folks. The first two verbs are self evident, but what does the third […]

A few years ago I was meeting with a candidate for Mayor of Ottawa; I was making the case for affordable housing and why we need to create more subsidized units. He asked me; if there is such a desperate need for more units, why are only 60% of CCOC’s apartments subsidized? What would your […]

I got a call recently from a member of the Seniors Committee of the Centretown Citizens Community Association asking if CCOC would consider building some seniors housing. The population of Centretown is aging. Folk heading into their retirement years are looking for suitable, affordable housing in this community. For the seniors committee, it seems that […]