WILLOW RIVER COMMUNITY LAND TRUST

On Apr. 17, 2026, eight downtown Kitchener non-profits came together in solidarity to incorporate the Willow River Community Land Trust (WRCLT). These are: the Willow River Centre, Community Justice Initiatives (CJI), Social Development Centre (SDC), Civic Hub Waterloo Region, SHORE Centre, Inter Arts Matrix, MT Space, Spectrum and Kind Minds Family Wellness.  

“Our vision is for this building to have a number of floors dedicated to affordable housing units, as well as a green space, a traditional gathering space, a gymnasium and a kitchen facility. A place where people can access numerous services under one roof,” Bangishimo, co-founder of the Willow River Centre and the Willow River Community Land Trust said.  

The primary goal of the WRCLT is to reclaim the land where the Charles Terminal is situated to build a permanent community hub. A community land trust (CLT) is a not-for-profit, democratically governed and community-based land stewardship organization. CLTs retain ownership of the land and convey long-term leases to individual homeowners, housing cooperatives, nonprofit organizations or other entities that own the buildings and improvements.   

“I’ve watched our members constantly struggle for space. We are one of the few cities in Southwestern Ontario that does not have an Indigenous-led or racialized-led community space,” Bangishimo said. 

The WRCLT will serve as a home for numerous organizations dedicated to Queer, racialized and arts communities. There is hope that the bus terminal’s location will make it accessible to a wide amount of people, since it is on the ION line and in the heart of Downtown Kitchener. 

“The conversation began in 2021 when Amy Smoke and I began specifically discussing the future of the Charles Street Terminal. The media picked up on this conversation, which sparked a massive response from community members on social media,” Bangishimo said. 

Smoke and Bangishimo were contacted by Niara Plet and Enoch Lie, undergraduate architecture students at the University of Waterloo at the time. The students offered to create a vision document of what the community hub may look like, which eventually became the foundation for the WRCLT.  

“We gathered our non-profit partner organizations and developed a project roadmap that outlined our governance structure. From there we were able to proceeded with forming a Board of Directors and incorporation,” Niara Plet, co-founding Director of WRCLT, said. 

The WRCLT was established in response to the growing housing crisis in downtown Kitchener. Through the guidance of Indigenous and marginalized leaders, their goal is to create a just, accessible and affordable space.  

“As we grow, we hope that Willow River CLT will ensure that Indigenous, Black, Queer and other marginalized voices with lived experience of housing injustice will be at the forefront of the housing justice conversation,” Plet said.