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Building More Than Homes: Philip Mills on Housing, Hope, and Systems Change · Behind the Business

• 0:01
  Ian McLean: Welcome to another episode of Behind the Business, presented by Gordon Mitchell.
• 0:04
  Ian McLean: I'm your host, Ian McLean, president and CEO of the Greater Kitchener Waterdo Chamber of Congress.
• 0:09
  Ian McLean: This podcast is recorded on the traditional territory of the neutral Anishinaabe and Ot Anishone people.
• 0:15
  Ian McLean: Each week I sit down for candid conversations where we go beyond the boardroom and behind the business to uncover the real stories of Waterdo Regions and business and community.
• 0:25
  Ian McLean: Today I'm joined by Philip Mills, CEO of Habitat for Humanity Waterdo Region and BuildNow Waterdo Region.
• 0:40
  Ian McLean: Housing affordability has become one of the defining challenges of our time, impacting businesses, families, talent attraction, and the overall health of our communities.
• 0:50
  Ian McLean: Fortunately, Philip is at the forefront of tackling housing from both an affordability and systems change perspective.
• 0:58
  Ian McLean: In this conversation, we'll explore how Habitat for Humanity's unique model creates long-term impact, why the missing middle is critical to our region's future, and what it takes to move from incremental change to bold, collaborative solutions.
• 1:14
  Ian McLean: We'll also talk about leadership, lessons learned, and why Water to Region continues to be a place where ambitious ideas can actually happen.
• 1:23
  Ian McLean: So let's go behind the business with Philip Mills.
• 1:27
  Ian McLean: Well, thanks for joining us.
• 1:29
  Ian McLean: Really appreciate you coming and spending some of your time with us today.
• 1:32
  Ian McLean: Thanks for having me.
• 1:32
  Ian McLean: Excited to do it.
• 1:33
  Ian McLean: Okay, so let's set the ch the stage.
• 1:36
  Ian McLean: When you joined Habitat for Humanity in, I think it was 2021.
• 1:41
  Ian McLean: Yep.
• 1:41
  Ian McLean: Uh the communities were, I mean, we were already starting to face the whether it's homelessness, affordability, but the just general affordability or availability of housing for for everybody was an issue.
• 1:56
  Ian McLean: So that disruption and though that in particular was was a driving force for for lots of folks.
• 2:04
  Ian McLean: When you look at your career, and you you had including your time at the independent living center, what drew you to the role as that was opening up in Habitat that you thought this was the right role for you?
• 2:17
  Philip Mills: It was complicated.
• 2:18
  Philip Mills: I like something that's complicated.
• 2:20
  Philip Mills: This wasn't simple, it wasn't going to be easy.
• 2:22
  Philip Mills: I really was drawn to the idea of here's the thing that matters.
• 2:26
  Philip Mills: Like housing mattered.
• 2:27
  Philip Mills: And I want to make sure that I'm putting my time.
• 2:29
  Philip Mills: Like I've chosen to work in not-for-profits and charities.
• 2:31
  Philip Mills: So like doing something that matters.
• 2:32
  Philip Mills: And I always say that with like a hesitation, like, it's okay if somebody is doing something that feels more like, hey, I'm building widgets or whatever the kids.
• 2:38
  Philip Mills: Like, that's not bad work.
• 2:39
  Philip Mills: It is important.
• 2:40
  Philip Mills: It makes the community go.
• 2:41
  Philip Mills: I chose to invest in stuff that matters.
• 2:43
  Philip Mills: And so seeing what's going to be worth doing, what do I want to spend my time on?
• 2:47
  Philip Mills: And housing was like, yeah, this is a cool problem.
• 2:49
  Philip Mills: Maybe a cool way is an odd way to phrase it, but this is a big, complicated problem, and I think I can help.
• 2:54
  Philip Mills: So let's go do something big and calm.
• 2:56
  Philip Mills: Because I'm going to spend 50 plus hours a week.
• 2:59
  Philip Mills: Like that's the type of thing I wanted to kind of sink my teeth into.
• 3:02
  Ian McLean: You said you said in that answer, and I thought that I think it's it's interesting, right?
• 3:06
  Ian McLean: Because this podcast is a little bit about community leaders and the and the work that they're doing, um, both private sector and sort of community leaders.
• 3:16
  Ian McLean: And it's I found it interesting, because I kind of probably made the same bargain as that you chose the not-for-profit space.
• 3:24
  Ian McLean: Like, you know, I was in worked in WSIB, was elected to office, I did have my own business, but but a lot of community-oriented stuff.
• 3:33
  Ian McLean: What makes that different?
• 3:34
  Ian McLean: Like when you when you chose that.
• 3:35
  Ian McLean: So independent living center, habitat.
• 3:38
  Ian McLean: Why did you make that conscious choice that that was where you wanted to put your where where you wanted the direction of your career to go?
• 3:45
  Philip Mills: I I would say I come by it honestly.
• 3:46
  Philip Mills: Like I think it's just like where my family came from.
• 3:48
  Philip Mills: So my father was a minister.
• 3:50
  Philip Mills: And so this idea of what flavor was he?
• 3:52
  Philip Mills: Uh he was out in Wilmot Township.
• 3:55
  Philip Mills: So uh it was a kind of a conservative with a bit of a Mennonite sort of background-ish.
• 3:59
  Philip Mills: So didn't know that.
• 4:00
  Philip Mills: Yeah, so I grew up as a pastor's kid for anybody that knows anything about pastor's kids.
• 4:03
  Philip Mills: I'm a PK too, right?
• 4:05
  Philip Mills: Yeah, okay.
• 4:06
  Philip Mills: So my dad's a Presbyterian minister, and so was my grandfather.
• 4:09
  Philip Mills: So the denomination was the Evangelical Missionary Church Canada.
• 4:12
  Philip Mills: So he was so like there's something about investing into people, giving of your time.
• 4:16
  Philip Mills: My mother uh is a social worker.
• 4:19
  Philip Mills: So worked with the hospital, people experiencing mental health, like all that kind of stuff.
• 4:22
  Philip Mills: So there was just this thing about us as a family that says, like, this is who we are.
• 4:26
  Philip Mills: So that sort of I don't know, familial identity was this is what we're about.
• 4:29
  Philip Mills: My brother is a minister, my other brother also works in housing.
• 4:32
  Philip Mills: Like it's just what kind of our family was oriented towards.
• 4:35
  Philip Mills: So when it came, like, what do you want to do?
• 4:37
  Philip Mills: Who are you gonna be?
• 4:38
  Philip Mills: This is just what aligned with how I understood myself.
• 4:40
  Philip Mills: And so it kind of, yeah, I come by it honestly, I think.
• 4:42
  Ian McLean: Okay, well, and that I mean, I I wanted to hear that background and now two PKs having a conversation about housing.
• 4:48
  Ian McLean: Listen, uh Habitat for Humanity, when you when people think of that, I think they still may have, and it was always important work, but the thought of it simply building houses, right?
• 4:58
  Ian McLean: We're gonna we're gonna have that one that you know one or two builds in the summer and we're gonna build housing.
• 5:02
  Ian McLean: But it's it's a lot more sophisticated than that.
• 5:04
  Ian McLean: I mean, it it over time, I think you know, folks like Karen Redmond that preceded you and others is like the organization is much more deeply ingrained in the whole I don't know, ecosystem of housing.
• 5:17
  Ian McLean: Um so walk us through that ecosystem.
• 5:21
  Ian McLean: Like what what is like volunteers, there's partner families, there you've got the restore where you recycle um, you know, whether it's vanities or you know, furniture, those sorts of things, and reinvest that back into the community.
• 5:36
  Ian McLean: So I mean, I I'm interested in in the evolution of that and how that that um model is is set is setting us up for longer-term impact.
• 5:47
  Philip Mills: Sure.
• 5:47
  Philip Mills: So we you know, everybody thinks about habitat, they think about, you know, we we you know whether we give away houses or whatever it is they think we do with them, something to do with housing.
• 5:55
  Philip Mills: You know, the kind of the background on all that is we sell houses.
• 5:58
  Philip Mills: So we are really focused on ownership, which is not something that everybody knows or is you know focused for a lot of other affordable housing providers.
• 6:06
  Philip Mills: Lots of folks are doing stuff to, you know, people are experiencing homelessness.
• 6:08
  Philip Mills: There's tons of work to do there.
• 6:09
  Philip Mills: Ownership options are not necessarily what that community needs.
• 6:12
  Philip Mills: Similarly, there's folks who are doing stuff on you know, affordable rental.
• 6:14
  Philip Mills: Habitat's always focused on this.
• 6:16
  Philip Mills: And I think we've gotten more and more sophisticated as to how we support and work as we've gone on.
• 6:21
  Philip Mills: You know, the the restore is a great example of us trying to make sure that we create sustainability, I think, from a business perspective.
• 6:27
  Philip Mills: It started early and it was there to cover administrative costs.
• 6:30
  Philip Mills: So when we go out and say, hey, we are asking for you to invest in us, I'm not asking for you to pay my salary.
• 6:35
  Philip Mills: I'm asking you to buy nails that go into a home.
• 6:38
  Philip Mills: And so we could make that pitch, it made fundraising easier.
• 6:40
  Philip Mills: And it also made it more stable that I wasn't chasing funding, being like, well, where are we going to pay for salaries and overhead and all those things you need to operate a charity, but are really hard to get funded.
• 6:49
  Philip Mills: The restore was there as an opportunity for us to say, hey, let's create, you know, this sustainable funding stream so that when people get connected and you know pour into us with their resources, their money, their time, it's going right to the housing.
• 7:01
  Philip Mills: So there's this kind of back-end sophistication.
• 7:03
  Philip Mills: The other side that I think people don't know about us is we're functionally a mortgage holder.
• 7:07
  Philip Mills: Like we are kind of like a bank.
• 7:08
  Philip Mills: This idea that, so we sell the house to the family, but nothing actually really transfers hands.
• 7:13
  Philip Mills: They get title to the property.
• 7:15
  Philip Mills: But since we built it and we paid for it, more often than not, where we end up is that we're then their mortgage hold.
• 7:19
  Philip Mills: So they pay us the mortgage back and we get that payment from them and use that to go build another house.
• 7:24
  Philip Mills: And so there's this back.
• 7:25
  Philip Mills: So despite, you know, we might have whatever number of homes we build in a year, we've got this roster of families that we are connected to and will be for a long time while they you know work through paying down their mortgage, and every dollar that they're paying back to us in those mortgages, we're using that to go and build more housing.
• 7:39
  Philip Mills: So it's this self-perpetuating sort of model.
• 7:42
  Philip Mills: And as we do more, it actually gives us more opportunity to do more because it kind of grows on itself.
• 7:47
  Ian McLean: So so let's pivot a little bit down to build now water to region.
• 7:52
  Ian McLean: Because this is this was an I think it was right at the end of I I want to think now.
• 7:56
  Ian McLean: I remember it was at Cambridge City Hall.
• 7:58
  Ian McLean: We made the was that three 2023?
• 8:01
  Ian McLean: I think so.
• 8:02
  Ian McLean: 23.
• 8:02
  Ian McLean: Anyways, number of years ago, I forget it's 2026, but um the players around there, you had lots of discussions.
• 8:11
  Ian McLean: City, city officials, regional officials, uh Jeff McIntyre from GVC, well now with the Grand Valley Construction Association, uh, but lots of folks around saying, what's actually missing?
• 8:23
  Ian McLean: Like what what is what is uh a pro what is the the the solution or what's the missing part of of of uh affordability for for some folks?
• 8:32
  Ian McLean: So um build now water to reason uh is a practical response to an aspect of the housing crisis with what what you know I think you talk about as the missing middle.
• 8:44
  Ian McLean: Right.
• 8:44
  Ian McLean: So what what is the gap that this initiative is designed to solve?
• 8:49
  Ian McLean: You know, or or another way to put it, what's the missing middle and how is this addressing that?
• 8:55
  Philip Mills: Sure.
• 8:55
  Philip Mills: So when we talk about missing middle, what folks are usually talking about is that distinction between think like one bedroom condo and single family standalone house.
• 9:04
  Philip Mills: Like, how do you, if you were to start today, and I kind of ask people this like think about it not where you've been, think you're today.
• 9:10
  Philip Mills: You are a 20-something graduating university.
• 9:13
  Philip Mills: What do you do and where are you going?
• 9:14
  Philip Mills: And so you're like the only thing you might be able to afford is a you know one bedroom condo for whatever the going price is today, you know, 300 and something thousand.
• 9:23
  Philip Mills: Okay, so maybe you can get in, but you want to you know build a family, you want to build a life.
• 9:27
  Philip Mills: Okay, where's the stepping stone?
• 9:29
  Philip Mills: What is that sort of entry-level housing?
• 9:31
  Philip Mills: Well, there isn't.
• 9:31
  Philip Mills: What's that for you if maybe you have a family, it starts to grow.
• 9:34
  Philip Mills: You're a one-bedroom condo and you got what, a kid, two kids, your partner, where do you go?
• 9:38
  Philip Mills: Well, because the step from that is to wow, the expensive, you know, single-family dwellings.
• 9:43
  Philip Mills: Like there isn't that in-between stuff, that stuff that you think about almost like starter homes.
• 9:46
  Ian McLean: You know, if you're so you may be talking about two or three bedroom apartment or or you know, freehold town uh town homes that are two or three bedrooms but affordable.
• 9:55
  Philip Mills: Yeah, there's that in-between stuff.
• 9:56
  Philip Mills: And I think that you really that that apartment style stuff is really what people like.
• 9:59
  Philip Mills: Yeah.
• 10:00
  Philip Mills: Because there's a gentle density that's implied with missing middle.
• 10:02
  Philip Mills: Yeah, we're not looking for necessarily like high rises, but that idea that how do you do a bit more?
• 10:07
  Philip Mills: When we talked about build now, we kind of framed it as, you know, we're gonna build wartime bungalows and stack them on top of each other.
• 10:11
  Philip Mills: Yeah.
• 10:12
  Philip Mills: So what does a, you know, places lots of people grow up, a thousand square feet, 1200 square feet, but three bedrooms, four bedrooms.
• 10:18
  Philip Mills: So for a family, what is like that doesn't exist.
• 10:21
  Philip Mills: Like I when I bought my first house, it was about 220.
• 10:23
  Philip Mills: Well, family could afford that on a reasonable, like you don't need a massive income to afford that.
• 10:27
  Philip Mills: That same house sold, you know, a couple of years ago for $750.
• 10:31
  Philip Mills: So like if that's the starter option, where does it how does anybody get involved?
• 10:34
  Philip Mills: And that that was, I think that's the stuff that's missing.
• 10:37
  Philip Mills: These opportunities, specifically for us when it comes to habitat, really focusing on families.
• 10:41
  Philip Mills: Like, where is the three-bedroom option that a person who is working a job can actually afford that doesn't have loads of equity from having owned forever, having gotten in early, or doesn't have an extremely well-paying job.
• 10:53
  Philip Mills: Like, where do you go for your family to thrive?
• 10:56
  Ian McLean: Okay, so uh to me, I think that that is a huge gap.
• 10:59
  Ian McLean: I mean, I I I I take your point.
• 11:01
  Ian McLean: I maybe 20 years ago bought my house for 225,000.
• 11:08
  Ian McLean: And if I was put it on the market in my neighborhood, it'd be somewhere between a million and a million and two.
• 11:12
  Ian McLean: Right.
• 11:13
  Ian McLean: I mean, yeah, I mean, I couldn't afford that if I wasn't already in there, I could not afford that that house right now.
• 11:18
  Ian McLean: And I I think that that's where we get to.
• 11:20
  Ian McLean: So Water to Region, in in a lot of ways, in a lot of areas, punches above its weight, right?
• 11:27
  Ian McLean: And and I think part of that is this collaboration that we do kind of work together.
• 11:32
  Ian McLean: Uh, it's not perfect by any stretch, but I think there is that there is that kind of ethos or that philosophy.
• 11:39
  Ian McLean: Um from your perspective, when we think about this, the this this model of build now, what makes this community capable of launching something as ambitious?
• 11:50
  Ian McLean: Because it's it's gotta, and I think maybe talk about the partners.
• 11:53
  Ian McLean: I mean, this is gonna take the cities and the region and and builders, like there's a lot of people that need to buy into, you know, foregoing profit or or you know, like there, there this is not this is people making a contribution to make sure there's more affordable options through Build Now for people in the community.
• 12:14
  Ian McLean: And the more that we do it, I think the expectation is when we see success, we'll be able to do more.
• 12:20
  Ian McLean: Um like build more capacity.
• 12:22
  Ian McLean: That's certainly the hope.
• 12:23
  Ian McLean: Yeah.
• 12:23
  Ian McLean: So so how does how does the like what what give fills you with confidence that the ambition of Build Now Waterloo can be done with the partners that are around the table?
• 12:36
  Philip Mills: I think like when we talk about like Waterloo region, there's always this sort of give and take or of, I don't know, a you know, tongue in cheek, like, hey, it's different here.
• 12:42
  Philip Mills: Yeah.
• 12:42
  Philip Mills: And so we say that, and then people are like, I don't want to talk about it.
• 12:44
  Philip Mills: If you mention barn raising, like people lose their minds rightfully.
• 12:47
  Philip Mills: So like it's just we talk about all those things.
• 12:48
  Philip Mills: So there is a bit of our own story we tell ourselves.
• 12:51
  Philip Mills: I think there's some truth to a lot of that, that there is something within the community.
• 12:54
  Philip Mills: There is an expectation we're working together.
• 12:56
  Philip Mills: So I think that helps.
• 12:57
  Philip Mills: What we had here was a bunch of people that really do care about the region.
• 13:01
  Philip Mills: And I don't know if that's different here.
• 13:02
  Philip Mills: Maybe there is a care for our region that is a little bit different than other places, something about you know how much we have historically said there's a problem here, we're gonna fix it here.
• 13:11
  Philip Mills: We're gonna do something.
• 13:12
  Philip Mills: And so this started with, you know, developers and not-for-profits and people coming together and saying, look, there needs to be a fix for this, something that fixes it here where we live.
• 13:21
  Philip Mills: And we don't see anything good elsewhere, so we're gonna pull it together ourselves.
• 13:24
  Philip Mills: And so there was this sort of you know, startup collaborative idea with it when it comes to getting the cities and municipalities and all of the partners involved, because we do.
• 13:32
  Philip Mills: We have developers who are working with us, we have, you know, Grand Valley Construction Associations, we've got the construction industry working with us, we've got multiple not-for-profit providers, we've got habitat, we've got cities now involved.
• 13:41
  Philip Mills: Like all of that took a lot of trust building.
• 13:43
  Philip Mills: It was a lot of time saying, like, let's get our motives aligned.
• 13:46
  Philip Mills: There is, I sometimes like there is this little thing that I think we kind of neglect, which is there is a healthy rivalry in our region as well.
• 13:54
  Philip Mills: And so I think sometimes part of the reason why we see innovation here, maybe in ways we don't other places, is because there is a healthy rivalry between a number of cities that say, we want the best for our community.
• 14:05
  Philip Mills: And so they're willing to do something because they know if they don't, the neighbor down the road might.
• 14:09
  Philip Mills: And I think there is something that drives a bit of that innovation, knowing you can find municipal partners because they want to do something more, because nobody's in a position where they can just stand pat because the community expects better from them because they can see better from their neighbor across the road.
• 14:22
  Philip Mills: And so sometimes that tension I think does really work in our favor.
• 14:25
  Ian McLean: Uh and I think we should never lose that.
• 14:28
  Ian McLean: On the other hand, I think we also have to recognize that in the grand scheme of things, we're also competing against lots of different parts of the world where 700,000 is a very small town, and and and the the where the capacity we need probably lends itself to doing more together.
• 14:47
  Ian McLean: But I take your point.
• 14:48
  Ian McLean: I mean, there there is that rivalry between neighborhoods or between even business sectors where there's where they're more situated.
• 14:55
  Philip Mills: So a healthy rivalry, yeah.
• 14:56
  Philip Mills: Like it has to be this makes it better for all of us, and I think we do that really well here.
• 15:00
  Philip Mills: Because we're right, if it ends up being now we can't compete on a larger scale because we can't get out of each other's way, that's problematic.
• 15:06
  Philip Mills: But to say they did something cool, I need to do something cool to show to be, you know, to one up them, great.
• 15:12
  Philip Mills: Let's let's better the community together.
• 15:16
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• 15:21
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• 15:26
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• 15:28
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• 15:41
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• 15:45
  Ian McLean: Housing's deeply personal and and it depends on what the seat you're in and whether you're looking for a home or you're trying to provide it.
• 15:57
  Ian McLean: So um, but as you look at it as a leader, how do you guide teams through uh through the work that carries both pressure?
• 16:06
  Ian McLean: Because there's there is pressure on habitat, there is pressure on your collaboration with the cities and Grand Valley Construction Associates, other business organizations that are supportive of this.
• 16:16
  Ian McLean: Um there's there's a pressure to that and there's a purpose to it.
• 16:20
  Ian McLean: How do you kind of keep everyone kind of moving in in the right direction?
• 16:25
  Philip Mills: Try and find some balance between saying like pressure is good, it can create things.
• 16:29
  Philip Mills: So, like, how do we lean into we are here for a purpose?
• 16:32
  Philip Mills: That there is something to this.
• 16:34
  Philip Mills: So I think the actual the question a lot of times when it comes to not-for-profits is how do you not overplay your hand?
• 16:39
  Philip Mills: How do you not be like, look, this is such a big deal and this matters so much?
• 16:43
  Philip Mills: I need more from you than is reasonable.
• 16:45
  Philip Mills: And so rather than trying to say, how do you get people motivated and behind this?
• 16:49
  Philip Mills: I found a lot of my work is hey, it's okay, you can turn off your computer.
• 16:52
  Philip Mills: Hey, you can go home.
• 16:53
  Philip Mills: We this isn't your whole life.
• 16:55
  Philip Mills: And trying to detach some of that responsibility because it's so hard.
• 16:59
  Philip Mills: People carry a lot of this and they're in it for all the right reasons, and not for profits that'll be like, well, we don't pay as much, but hey, it's really good work and it matters.
• 17:07
  Philip Mills: And all those things play into this sort of burned out work so hard to try, because it matters.
• 17:13
  Philip Mills: But I think my work has been a lot of times saying, like, this does matter, and it's not saying otherwise.
• 17:18
  Philip Mills: And you should have a work-life balance, and I think that has actually helped us stay on track and be effective because I'm not trying to intentionally, at least.
• 17:26
  Philip Mills: Nobody's intentionally trying to burn people out, but we have less burnout, and I think people are more engaged because we're trying to say, like, I I get an email from somebody at eight o'clock at night and the next day, I'm like, please stop working late.
• 17:36
  Philip Mills: Like, don't do that.
• 17:36
  Philip Mills: You, I'm not expecting that.
• 17:38
  Philip Mills: You don't have to do that to try and actually pull some of that pressure off of them because I think people layer it on themselves.
• 17:44
  Ian McLean: So well, you know, I I I get that sometimes, and I'm guilty of because that's when I actually do my catch-up, is that because I do not like mornings.
• 17:52
  Ian McLean: So you're not gonna get an email from me at seven in the morning, you might get one at seven at night.
• 17:56
  Ian McLean: But I it I mean, I I I think that's a good analogy.
• 17:59
  Ian McLean: It's a it really is the meaningful work that needs to happen, is usually a marathon, not a sprint.
• 18:05
  Ian McLean: Absolutely.
• 18:05
  Ian McLean: And and I and I think we sometimes lose track of that.
• 18:08
  Ian McLean: I mean, we look at the and the you know, our you know, our vision one million series, which is really it's not it's not just business issues.
• 18:15
  Ian McLean: These are things that the community needs, whether new hospital, 70,000 homes, and which build now would be part of that and habitat.
• 18:23
  Ian McLean: But when you think about the big, big, hairy stuff that we need to get on top of if we're gonna be a million people in 25 or 30 or 35 years, it's 70,000 or 70,000 homes, it's a new hospital, it's the LRT, it's it's 70,000 or uh a hundred thousand jobs.
• 18:40
  Ian McLean: Those are not things that lend themselves to saying if I just work an extra two hours this today or four hours tomorrow, there's that there's that there's that sense of this is a this is a we have to look at this and keep plugging away every day.
• 18:54
  Ian McLean: Um and supporting staff is an important part of that, right?
• 18:57
  Ian McLean: Because you can let them burn out.
• 18:58
  Ian McLean: Uh you're you're absolutely right about that.
• 19:00
  Ian McLean: Listen, if you if you uh to move things faster, right?
• 19:04
  Ian McLean: So in and build now is is one of those innovative things that when we get it right, and we and you're doing one in uptown or in in North Waterloo with the City of Waterloo, you've got so we're now starting to see you've got multiple sites, you see the momentum building.
• 19:18
  Ian McLean: And once you get some of these to the finish line and people are moving in, I think it will start to have its own momentum that we can do more, and that you'll see it'll come to scale where you're seeing more of that.
• 19:31
  Ian McLean: Um but as you as you if you so that's one aspect of it.
• 19:35
  Ian McLean: If you could remove or modernize one piece of policy or legislation that really is retarding the the kind of the ability to move faster or or puts the brakes on that you're not able to do it.
• 19:49
  Ian McLean: What would what would you suggest would be one of the things we could do to most accelerate housing delivery and water degrees?
• 19:56
  Ian McLean: Because it depends on who you talk to.
• 19:57
  Ian McLean: If it's like you know, you talk to a high rise Developers like, well, you know, if cement price go down or you know, skill tri like it could be a whole range of things.
• 20:05
  Ian McLean: But from your sit from your seat, what would be that one or two things that would really make a difference that you could kind of take the next big step?
• 20:14
  Philip Mills: I so like you kind of lead into the problem here is that like there are so many things and they all interrelate.
• 20:20
  Philip Mills: Like, well, if you tweak this, that doesn't fix it.
• 20:22
  Philip Mills: Like there's so many checkpoints and pieces to this, it's really hard to key on one.
• 20:26
  Philip Mills: If I had to say one, I wish that there was a way that we as a municipality and locally could free up land faster.
• 20:33
  Philip Mills: So if the answer was, look, we think this is a big deal and we want to put land on the table, that is, I get why that is a slow process and why there is work to do and we have to properly evaluate the cost and look through the you know asset management and all the sort of things that municipalities are good because they are for good reason risk averse.
• 20:50
  Philip Mills: And so, you know, dispossessing themselves of a large asset as a thing, man, it would help if that came faster.
• 20:56
  Philip Mills: And could we move on that faster?
• 20:57
  Philip Mills: Are there ways to do those things?
• 20:58
  Philip Mills: Even you think about some of the work the federal government said, hey, we're gonna move on these sort of land parcels.
• 21:03
  Philip Mills: It's a long, slow process to get those, you know, you know, those government assets into the hands of folks who are gonna try and turn that into community benefit.
• 21:11
  Philip Mills: So I wish we could just do that faster.
• 21:13
  Ian McLean: Is is there something, I mean, is there some of this, is there something in the municipal act that the province could do to say you can expedite and say you do 30 days versus like is there some as opposed to um um being prescriptive about saying if if a request confirmed you shall like mandate it faster, or is it is it's still it's is it not as clear um it's probably less policy in that sense, and it's a lot more of like the way in which government works.
• 21:43
  Philip Mills: Okay.
• 21:43
  Philip Mills: So if you were to say that, council have just got to respond faster and and they have to, but they and I think like understandably, if you say, hey, we're gonna get, you know, here's a multi-million dollar asset, we're gonna give it to somebody, like they want to be prudent and think that through and take their time.
• 21:57
  Philip Mills: But as they take their time, I am you know it's another month, another month, six months, however, until we get to start thinking about getting housing.
• 22:03
  Philip Mills: Housing takes so long to build, I do sometimes feel like we don't always consider the cost we're of waiting.
• 22:10
  Philip Mills: We don't consider the cost of slow to act now means the house isn't gonna be ready in a year, it's gonna be ready in four years.
• 22:16
  Philip Mills: And what are we talking about in four years if we're not having housing coming online now?
• 22:19
  Philip Mills: So I think it is one of those problems that because it is slow to address, it like I just feel an urgency to move faster.
• 22:28
  Ian McLean: I think that's good.
• 22:29
  Ian McLean: Having been on council for seven years and worked in government most in some aspects, government is not designed for fast.
• 22:37
  Ian McLean: It's not it's not designed for speed, um, but we do have to speed up um as as as long as it takes.
• 22:44
  Philip Mills: But it can, like they have, and I guess sometimes that's where my wish there was.
• 22:47
  Philip Mills: I think about during COVID, governments did some things that were really fast because that was a crisis.
• 22:52
  Philip Mills: If but because it was right in front of us in a way that I think is easier to see, if we saw this with the same level of crisis of what are we going to do?
• 23:00
  Philip Mills: Because there are impacts to education, there are impacts to, you know, I don't know, the development of community, the impacts to, you know, employment.
• 23:08
  Philip Mills: We don't get a handle on housing.
• 23:09
  Philip Mills: We treat it like the being like, and we need today's problems are solving four years from now.
• 23:14
  Philip Mills: I I think there might be an opportunity to see a different level of action, but I think it's hard and it's hard to justify, and it's hard when the result won't come before the next election cycle.
• 23:23
  Ian McLean: Well, and that's that's uh that's a that's a whole discussion for another time.
• 23:27
  Ian McLean: Let's leave that one.
• 23:28
  Ian McLean: Um as we're you know, time's going quickly.
• 23:32
  Ian McLean: Let me ask this.
• 23:34
  Ian McLean: Presumably there will be business leaders and business owners uh that will be watching this, mostly for you, not for me, but they will be listening and watching.
• 23:44
  Ian McLean: Um and the and many of them will want to be part of the solution, but as as is normally like, what can I do?
• 23:50
  Ian McLean: And so I guess the the question that I would put to you is if for someone who wants to be part of maybe the the build now or to be part of habitat, what's one meaningful way or what's the most uh the most meaningful way they can engage in this the in getting more housing uh beyond writing a check?
• 24:13
  Ian McLean: Checks are good, that's important.
• 24:14
  Ian McLean: Always take a check.
• 24:15
  Ian McLean: But if someone wants to get more engaged either themselves as a business owner or they and their staff, what are the things that they can do or how how can they be helpful?
• 24:24
  Philip Mills: I think our community, like the business leaders carry weight.
• 24:27
  Philip Mills: They matter.
• 24:28
  Philip Mills: And so I kind of implore folks to understand and see that like in some respects, all issues are housing issues.
• 24:34
  Philip Mills: Like if you start to see, so there's some research that came out today, or that I was reading in the Global Mail today, which is kind of terrifying when you start to see that if people don't have this hope of a future where they say, like, hey, I can't buy a house, and there's really was tied around buying a house, that there are just people who just shut off.
• 24:51
  Philip Mills: They're like, Okay, like if hard work doesn't matter anymore, they are they work less, they are less engaged in community, they are more likely to be engaged in sort of reckless behavior, they're financially less careful, like there's all these sort of really terrible knock-on effects, and it's happening all over the world.
• 25:05
  Philip Mills: And so we're saying, how do we have you know good employment?
• 25:09
  Philip Mills: How do we, you know, how does that work?
• 25:10
  Philip Mills: Well, if we don't have good housing, you'll never sort employment.
• 25:13
  Philip Mills: Like these things are all together.
• 25:14
  Philip Mills: And so I think the hope is like use your leverage, use your contacts, use your platforms and you know, your sway to say, we need housing because that fixes so many of these other issues.
• 25:25
  Philip Mills: When we want to talk about, like we can't have an entire generation that's given up.
• 25:29
  Philip Mills: But there is this sort of helplessness and annihilation that is seeping into a lot of our community around like what does it matter?
• 25:35
  Philip Mills: I can't, like, I can't work hard enough.
• 25:37
  Philip Mills: So that person's not going to show up to work ready to go invested in the community when they're like, what does it matter if I work hard here or not?
• 25:43
  Philip Mills: Like all of that stuff.
• 25:44
  Philip Mills: And so I think every issue at a certain point does have some sort of roots, and we don't have stable housing.
• 25:50
  Philip Mills: So much else is hard to address.
• 25:51
  Philip Mills: And so, how do we all understand that I'm not talking about housing for the sake of just like housing as an end?
• 25:57
  Philip Mills: There are so many things that are impacted by you don't have stable housing that impacts employment, impacts recruitment.
• 26:02
  Philip Mills: Yeah, can't like if I can't live in the region, how do I go to the restaurant that I love?
• 26:05
  Philip Mills: Because who's working there if they can't afford to live?
• 26:07
  Philip Mills: Like all of those things play together.
• 26:09
  Ian McLean: And that that it's connected to the social determinants of health.
• 26:12
  Ian McLean: So you don't have you know if you don't have health, uh, you know, if you don't have good health care and you don't have housing, it's hard to be, you know, productive and to have them, you know, all of those things that you're talking about.
• 26:22
  Ian McLean: Look, we could we can come back and start, we'll have to have uh um the second uh uh chapter of this to get into some of those those things.
• 26:30
  Ian McLean: But um uh just as we as we sort of wrap up this section and go to our rapid fire for it, uh when you look ahead, like you're I I mean everyone's younger than I am, but you're younger than I am in five or ten years when you're if you're still at this seat or looking back at the work that you've done at Habitat, what does success from your seat, what does success look like for habitat for humanity and for housing more broadly in in water and region?
• 26:58
  Ian McLean: Like if if you if the starting point is what year are we?
• 27:01
  Ian McLean: 2026 in 2030 or 2032, what does success look like?
• 27:05
  Ian McLean: How will we know whether we've kind of tried started to get on top of the wave versus being buried the way we are now?
• 27:12
  Philip Mills: Probably something simple like I don't know, transformational change in the housing sector or something.
• 27:17
  Philip Mills: Not something easy like that.
• 27:18
  Philip Mills: I think what we're looking for is that, you know, for me, I think we'll be successful if what we've done here, others want.
• 27:25
  Philip Mills: So I want to I do want to try and transform our housing sector and say that, hey, actually, we can make housing affordable if we do it right.
• 27:32
  Philip Mills: And the success will be not only did we build some houses that every other community is like, I want that.
• 27:37
  Philip Mills: Like, how do you can you do that here?
• 27:39
  Philip Mills: I want that.
• 27:39
  Philip Mills: You're talking about the model.
• 27:40
  Ian McLean: Like, it how do you bring the right people together to sort of to be able to make make meaningful gains?
• 27:46
  Philip Mills: So, this is a we built a lot of houses because that's going to be the type of thing that grabs attention.
• 27:51
  Philip Mills: We built it in a way that creates affordability that people desperately need, and it's so undeniably good that the rest of the province and sit and countries like, I want that.
• 27:59
  Philip Mills: So, like a that the rest of this country is envious of our housing system, like that's success to me.
• 28:04
  Philip Mills: That's simple.
• 28:05
  Philip Mills: You'll be able to get that, you'll be able to get that all.
• 28:07
  Philip Mills: I did I'll do that in 26 and we'll do something else.
• 28:10
  Ian McLean: We'll find something big in 20.
• 28:11
  Ian McLean: Listen, um, this podcast I mean is great to hear the story and what leaders are doing in the community, but it's it's also about leadership and and how people kind of come to that and and how they view it.
• 28:24
  Ian McLean: Uh, because I find it interesting.
• 28:25
  Ian McLean: I've done this for a couple of years now, and everyone's got a different take on this, what I call the rapid fire questions.
• 28:31
  Ian McLean: It's all the same question I ask every week.
• 28:33
  Ian McLean: So uh and and and so, you know, uh in in quick-ish answers, uh, let's go through these.
• 28:41
  Ian McLean: If if you were to able to go back and tell your younger self something, what would it be?
• 28:46
  Philip Mills: It's okay to not know.
• 28:48
  Philip Mills: Like I think there's an like a necessity to be right or to know everything.
• 28:50
  Philip Mills: Like younger me was arrogant in a way that I hope old older me isn't.
• 28:54
  Philip Mills: So like it started like a lot earlier being like, hey man, it's alright, you don't know things.
• 28:59
  Ian McLean: Don't know.
• 28:59
  Ian McLean: Yeah.
• 28:59
  Ian McLean: That's that's good.
• 29:00
  Ian McLean: I mean, and and especially younger people should do that more when they're younger.
• 29:05
  Ian McLean: And then you're yeah.
• 29:06
  Ian McLean: Yeah, you don't have to walk it back when you're older.
• 29:10
  Ian McLean: Um inspiration comes from a lot of different places and a lot of different different um um perspectives.
• 29:18
  Ian McLean: But who or what has inspired you along the way?
• 29:21
  Philip Mills: I like a good revolutionary.
• 29:23
  Philip Mills: Like there's somebody who's like, hey, we're gonna fix the system, we're going after it.
• 29:26
  Philip Mills: Like there's this kind of quote in the back of my head from a uh Catholic archbishop in uh Brazil.
• 29:31
  Philip Mills: He talks about like, when I feed the poor, I'm a saint, and when I ask why there are poor, I'm a communist.
• 29:37
  Philip Mills: Yeah.
• 29:38
  Philip Mills: That question of like not just doing the work, but those people are like pushing at the buttons of a system to be like, this is broken and we can fix it.
• 29:44
  Philip Mills: Like, those are that's where my inspiration comes from, which maybe is telling us to why I'm like, I don't know, let's fix all of housing.
• 29:49
  Philip Mills: Like I think I that revolutionary sort of folks are the people that really kind of grab me.
• 29:54
  Ian McLean: Well, it it uh and frankly, it needs a revolution, and I think you're you're helping to lead that.
• 29:58
  Ian McLean: And and we are here in Waterloo Region.
• 30:00
  Ian McLean: Um, if you weren't in your career, now you've done different things in your career, but if you weren't in your current career, you weren't at Habitat, and you were doing something, uh, something else.
• 30:10
  Ian McLean: You'd if you'd gone down a different path, what would that look like?
• 30:12
  Ian McLean: What would you be doing?
• 30:14
  Philip Mills: Today, it's probably farming.
• 30:15
  Philip Mills: Like we were my wife is a farmer, and when I get to go out and do the farming with her, I just like there is something about, and maybe it's just because it's so different that this is not 10 years down the road some housing will appear.
• 30:26
  Philip Mills: It's like I fixed a fence today, or we get to see the fruits of your labor.
• 30:30
  Philip Mills: Do something and it changes.
• 30:31
  Philip Mills: So I would probably be I would probably be looking for something where when I do it, I can actually see that coming out day after day after day.
• 30:38
  Philip Mills: Instant gratification, but not on a f on a cell phone.
• 30:41
  Ian McLean: Yes.
• 30:41
  Ian McLean: Yes, okay.
• 30:43
  Ian McLean: Are you reading a book?
• 30:45
  Ian McLean: Are you what reading a podcast?
• 30:46
  Ian McLean: Or what do you do to kind of uh if not tune out, but to kind of give your mind a break from from your day-to-day.
• 30:53
  Philip Mills: I listen to like a lot of sports podcasts and those sort of things because I find that is great.
• 30:56
  Philip Mills: Books-wise, I'll make a s a shameless plug.
• 30:59
  Philip Mills: My wife wrote a book, and so I'm reading that right now.
• 31:01
  Philip Mills: So that's something that is the what is the name?
• 31:03
  Philip Mills: It's called In the Beginning Again.
• 31:05
  Philip Mills: And so she retold, this is back to that you know, pastor's kid.
• 31:07
  Philip Mills: Uh she took and retold a whole bunch of biblical stories in a modern context so people can understand them.
• 31:12
  Philip Mills: So I she did a great job.
• 31:14
  Philip Mills: And so I am reading self-published.
• 31:16
  Philip Mills: And was it on Amazon or so?
• 31:18
  Philip Mills: If people want it, you can go on Amazon in the beginning again.
• 31:20
  Ian McLean: All the technical terms now.
• 31:21
  Ian McLean: Self-published Amazon.
• 31:22
  Ian McLean: Yeah.
• 31:23
  Ian McLean: So what's it called?
• 31:23
  Ian McLean: In the beginning again.
• 31:26
  Ian McLean: In the beginning again.
• 31:27
  Ian McLean: Well, that's incredible for her.
• 31:28
  Ian McLean: Okay, and and what is your favorite go-to local business in the region?
• 31:33
  Ian McLean: Coffee shop, restaurant, retail?
• 31:36
  Philip Mills: I might be selfish.
• 31:36
  Philip Mills: Uh Lenjo Bakes is a place to go.
• 31:38
  Philip Mills: And that has it might be because it's my she's my sister-in-law and I Lenore's the best.
• 31:43
  Philip Mills: Oh, really?
• 31:44
  Philip Mills: It's also because the I don't actually like sweet things, but like I like her baking.
• 31:49
  Philip Mills: So I think it speaks to the kind of how good it is because like I don't love sweet things, but I will happily eat anything Lenore makes.
• 31:55
  Philip Mills: So if you're looking for a spot, Lenjo Bakes is a place to go.
• 31:58
  Ian McLean: Okay, and um just as we wrap up, we're we're if people want to learn more about Habitat, connect with you, what's the best way for them to connect with you or uh or Habitat?
• 32:09
  Philip Mills: So I you can easily find us on our website, habitatwr.ca.
• 32:12
  Philip Mills: You can get all that's going on with Habitat.
• 32:14
  Philip Mills: If you want to find me specifically, I spend probably too much time on LinkedIn, so it's an easy spot to go track me down.
• 32:19
  Philip Mills: You can see all my pontifications and things at all.
• 32:21
  Philip Mills: Philip Mills.
• 32:22
  Philip Mills: Philip Mills, it's easy to find.
• 32:23
  Philip Mills: I work at Habitat WR Water Region, easy to find there.
• 32:27
  Philip Mills: Uh that's I think the best places to track me down these days.
• 32:30
  Ian McLean: Listen, I know how busy you are, and so I appreciate you taking a stop in at the chamber offices and uh and spending some time with us today.
• 32:37
  Ian McLean: Thanks for joining us.
• 32:37
  Ian McLean: Thanks for having me.
• 32:38
  Ian McLean: It was great.
• 32:39
  Ian McLean: Thank you for joining us for another episode of Behind the Business, proudly presented by Gore Mutual, insurance that does good.
• 32:46
  Ian McLean: New episodes drop every Thursday, so be sure to tune in next week.
• 32:50
  Ian McLean: You can also visit greater kwchamber.com to catch up on past episodes at any time.
• 32:55
  Ian McLean: We'll see you next time as we continue to go behind the business.