This text has been extracted from Drew Toth, CEO of Elevate Living’s speaking notes during his presentation at the UEF 8 on September 9th, 2026 at the World Urban Pavilion.
Good Afternoon government officials, non-profit leaders, Indigenous leaders, co-op leaders, private sector, neighbourhood activists, and SDG 11 enthusiasts. My name is Drew Toth and I am the founder and CEO of Elevate Living. We are a social entrepreneurship company focused on good financial returns and good social returns. Our mission is to meet the needs of the community through housing. We do land development, construction and investments and we operate a Real Estate Investment Trust fund focused on powering this good work.
I want to thank you for coming today and choosing to participate in this great summit. I am not sure how you are feeling overall about the current climate we find ourselves in. But if I am vulnerable with you I find it challenging, heavy, and at sometimes discouraging. With all the geopolitical unrest, trade war, forest fires, recent flooding, and with the cost of living – our food and housing at an all-time high compared with the average wage. The middle class is being eroded. Yesterday in a national address our Prime Minister made an announcement warning Canadians that tough times are ahead.
This is exactly one of the reasons that I am so grateful to be here with you today: despite the great challenges we are facing, I know that you could be anywhere today and you choose to be here because you care about the issues we are facing and you want to do something about it. We have great leaders and specialists from many different sectors here with us today in the midst of fighting for solutions that are best for humanity. Thank you for spending your valuable time at UEF 8.
Today I am talking with you for a few brief moments about housing innovation. We often think of modular housing, or 3D printed homes when we hear this term. And although non-traditional construction is one form of innovative housing - it really is only one facet of it. So let’s take a minute to refresh ourselves on what housing innovation refers to.
“Innovative housing refers to creative, non-traditional approaches to designing, building, and financing homes that improve affordability, reduce environmental impact, and make efficient use of limited space.”
Any of you in the room who have ever led or participated in a housing project in Canada understand how time consuming and difficult it is just to get the shovel in the ground. It is a complex multi-disciplinary practice that involves many experts and specialists. Architects, Engineers, Lenders, Environmental Scientists, Financial Experts, Planners, Designers, Energy Modelers, Non-Profit Groups, Government Employees, Politicians, Neighbourhoods, and more.
So now we are asking you to add in some new good ideas. We don’t know if it will work but we have a few good ideas. Spend the next 3-7 years, your organization’s time, your money and let’s try a bunch of new things and take on a bunch of risk. It seems funny when I say it this way but that is exactly what we are doing with housing innovation. We are taking on an extremely long and difficult process and we are adding more risk and more challenges to it. So who is ready and motivated to get started?
Have you heard, “ wisdom lies in the council of many”? Have you heard "if you want to go fast 'go alone' if you want to go far – go together."
Today, I want you to think about collaboration as a Housing Innovation. I believe it is the most effective Innovation that can help us actually move forward to address the complex challenge before us - of creating the housing of tomorrow that can actually meets the needs of our communities and countries. How can we introduce a new building technology without talking to code experts, builders, and banks to ensure it actually gets applied? How can we design future housing with understanding what is an attractive and end-user friendly design. How can we not consider how our mechanical systems will handle increased cooling demand, flooding, and harsh weather events.
Yes, collaboration is difficult, yes it takes longer, and yes it can be frustrating trying to bring so many opinions, groups, and professionals together to achieve one unified purpose.
As an entrepreneur I am always managing time and money. It is my job to try to make things go faster, push things forward and get things done. Process is not usually my number one passion. In fact I am constantly fighting through approval and design processes that go longer than expected or planned. Many of our consultants and key team members are so busy it is hard sometimes just to get everyone together.
Despite all the challenges the best solutions that I am seeing come to life across the country all seem to have one thing in common. Collaboration across multiple sectors. Where we meet today in Regent Park is a shining beacon of hope showing the power of deep collaboration. Innovative housing is in the approach and process of putting the best social outcomes first.
Over the last few years I personally have had the privilege to work alongside the Golden Horseshoe Cooperative Housing Federation and the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada, CMHC, the City of St. Catharines, the Niagara Region and Enbridge Savings by Design Group. Working together we have broken ground on a 492-unit Co-operative Housing project. This project is the largest affordable housing project in the Niagara region, it is being built with Stubbes FastTrack pre-cast concrete and is the first fully Geothermal-powered apartment building in Niagara. And as much as I am excited about all of these innovative things. As I have had the time to really reflect on what innovative housing is and what makes really makes it work, I have come to know that it is truly the collaboration amongst so many people and groups each in their key areas of knowledge and experience. I want to thank my co-op friends, who I have learned so much from about Collaboration.
If we are tackling such a complex and multi-disciplinary problem then we must engage the best of each sector. The public, the non-profit, and the private. We must come together in unity and one purpose to make our communities and country a better place.
This is exactly why I firmly believe in the work of the Urban Economy Forum, the World Urban Pavillon, and events like today and tomorrow. The UEF is constantly bringing expert leaders together to track, to document, and execute on living out SDG 11.
Today I am asking you to press in to take the often slower and more difficult approach to truly live out collaboration. Collaboration is Housing Innovation and it is working. I believe it is the path that can bring Housing that meets the needs of the community and our country.
If readers would like to get in contact with Elevate Living about this subject, please email info@elevateliving.ca.