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Affordable housing project planned for St. Theresa's
A drone shot of St. Theresa’s Church. Seen on the steps of the church is rubble from the ongoing demolition project.
Photo courtesy John van Gurp
November 21, 2025
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Hope is slowly building in a project that looks to bring forth a solution to homelessness in Halifax through the renewed rubble of a former Catholic church.
On the site of the St. Theresa’s Church, the Archdiocese of Halifax-Yarmouth is constructing a fully affordable-housing development, with the project seeking to provide more than 30 permanently non-market rental units in the heart of the city.
The historic St. Theresa’s had been open since 1931, but was closed to the public in October 2023 and permanently shut down in May 2024 due to a variety of compounding issues.
“As often with church closures, sadly, it is a confluence of factors. The building was closed to the public due to some air quality issues related to mould, and as time went on, the parish needed some exterior work as well,” said John Stevens, the manager of pastoral life and new evangelization for the archdiocese.
The parish was closed around the same time as its neighbouring church, St. Patrick’s, which had been dealing with its own structural issues in the church’s steeple and tower.
While St. Patrick’s basement would go on to function as a temporary homeless shelter with the help of Soul’s Harbour Rescue Mission, St. Theresa’s Parish is hoping for a similar reincarnation in its space in the coming years to address one of the archdiocese’s primary areas of concern.
“ Social justice is one of our four pastoral priorities in the archdiocese, and the particular focus right now here in Halifax is on homelessness. While we’ve had our crisis emergency shelters, temporary shelters and parishes doing a variety of things, from a justice perspective, the issue is also that there is no housing. For many, there's no place to go,” Stevens said.
The closing of St. Theresa’s, combined with its large and advantageous property complete with proper access to transit and nearby schools, acted as the perfect storm for the archdiocese to take the project on. With the property not able to be renovated and not a protected heritage property, the soon-to-be-empty lot in the dead centre of Halifax will soon be put to good use once again.
The proposed design for the complex is said to be a six-floor building featuring a diverse mix of studios, housing one- to four-bedroom units, along with nine fully accessible units.
Stevens explained the process behind the unique mix and how it became a main component of the project.
“Our goal is to support the dignity of each visitor as an important first principle, and then you start to look around and see that the new stuff that's being constructed around here is mainly one bedrooms or studios because you can fit so many of those into a building to get more rent. That doesn't help an immigrant family that came here with six kids jammed into two bedrooms or disabled folks who need a little more mobility room,” he said. “ We just wanted to have diversity and dignity in the types of spaces we’re going to be offering as well.”
The Archdiocese of Halifax-Yarmouth will retain ownership of the property once built to ensure long-term affordability and is likely to outsource day-to-day operations like tenant management to a nonprofit third party. While there are no current fixed dollar amounts yet, the program is aiming for a rough average of 65 per cent of average market rates, scaled by income to target households priced out of modern private rentals.
Stevens said the project is still a couple of years away from breaking ground, hoping for potential construction in 2027 if everything goes according to plan. The archdiocese is in the schematic design phase, with initial architectural renderings and engineering approval being worked on as St. Theresa's demolition continues.
“Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation or Build Canada Homes will provide funding to build things like this, but they need you to have a design that's ready to go. Most non-profits won’t have land and the money to pay an architect for a design before anything else, so this is one of those ways the Church is uniquely positioned to be able to do something like this,” Stevens said.
“If it’s a way we can give back through our mission and mandate as well, that’s even better.”
A version of this story appeared in the November 23, 2025, issue of The Catholic Registerwith the headline "Halifax church set to get new life".
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