#78: Yasushi Ohki: Green Violin... investing in well-being through a new model of affordable housing and community assets development

Yasushi Ohki is the founder and director of Green Violin, an Edmonton-based community development company with a remarkable vision for building affordable housing with a well-being impact focus. 

As Urbanists, the mission of Green Violin is to improve the well-being of our neighborhoods by building innovative spaces where SUSTAINABLE HOUSING and community come together. We are all about Inclusivity, Earth Friendly Design, and Social Connectedness.

We spoke today (April 6, 2021) about his vision for building affordable housing in which you and I as friends, neighbours and investors can support the building of homes that are affordable to the most economically challenged members of our neighbourhoods.

Yasushi is a remarkable person and visionary. His model for a new form of affordable housing combines some of the strengths of the Habitat for Humanity program with an investment platform that provides local investors like you to invest our money in real community asset development rather than see our money go to equity markets, stocks, and bonds that don't necessarily benefit our communities. 

Yasushi is not your typical property developer. He has adopted a well-being-by-design approach (something I wrote about in my book An Economy of Well-being) to the affordable housing development space. We have worked together in designing investment instruments that would allow smaller amounts of local capital investment to be invested in community asset development that will generate a genuine well-being return on investment that benefits both the beneficiaries of the affordable housing units Green Violin builds but also investors like myself who have been searching for investments that provide tangible and verifiable well-being impacts (a Well-being ROI).

Yasushi was raised in Edmonton and has called it home since completing degrees in civil engineering (University of Alberta) and architecture (University of British Columbia). For over 22 years, he has worked in the land development industry, including greenfield development, infill residential construction and project management.

Yasushi has also spent a good portion of his professional life in civil service, first in Strathcona County’s Current Planning Department, then in the Government of Alberta’s Ministry of Infrastructure, and finally in the City of Edmonton’s Housing and Homelessness Section. In his most recent nonprofit role, he served as Director of Housing at Homeward Trust Edmonton, an organization focused on the homeless-serving sector.

Yasushi brings to his work a love of urban design and a keen eye for how people interact with architecture, combined with a sensitivity to the realities of building construction and maintenance. He continues his work in community development with the establishment of a trio of sustainability-oriented organizations: the Green Violin Community Development Company, the Rose Cello Affordable Housing Society, and the Prairie Sky Property Management Corporation.

“I am all about Caring and Sharing. I love the indigenous philosophy of One Bowl One Spoon and I too want to make sure that everybody has enough to eat and that we don’t take more than our share, both from nature and from each other."

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