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Kelowna.com | In Profile: Kelowna City Councillor Luke Stack |
By Adrian Nieoczym
If the name Luke Stack is familiar to you it’s probably because you’re familiar with his work, either as a city councillor or as the executive director of the Society of Hope, a non-profit housing provider.
But what you probably don’t know is that he is also a trumpet player, who every Friday evening gets together with the other 20 members of the Lake Country Big Band to play sweet, sweet music.
“Sometimes I get a little too work orientated,” and put in too many hours at the office, says Stack as a way of explaining why he decided six years ago, at the age of 47, to once again pick up an instrument he last put down when he was 18. He needed an outlet to take him away from a job he loves.
Playing trumpet has become so important to him he keeps an instrument under his desk at the Society of Hope offices, just in case he gets the urge to take a break and do some scales. “It’s the only time I can toot my own horn,” he jokes.
Stack was born and raised in Calgary. In grade 11, he started dating Anne, who he would marry several years later when he was 21 and she was 20. The decision to tie the knot was driven in part by their flourishing Christian faith.
“Both of us had been sort of working through our spirituality,” says Stack. “We made a decision to become active Christians…so that really influenced our decision making.”
After Luke finished his Bachelor of Commerce degree at the University of Calgary, the Stacks’ faith led them to Kelowna.
“There were a bunch of people who were starting churches up here and stuff, so we met a whole bunch of other young people,” he says. “And they were all keen to be active in church and they were all having kids, so it was a really fun time.”
But while matters of the heart and the soul were easily nourished in Kelowna during the early ’80s, the same could not be said for matters of the wallet. It was a tough economic time and Stack struggled to find work.
So Luke, Anne and their friend Dave Watland rented a big house on Ethel Street and moved in – along with the Stack’s two kids Joel and Laura – and ran a group home.
“That was sort of my first taste of providing housing to people,” says Stack. Shortly after moving into the house, Anne gave birth to Heather, the couple’s third child in under three years.
Luke eventually caught on with a company called Business World, which specialized in the new field of computers and hired him as a comptroller. But Stack, along with his family, ended up getting transferred, first to Kamloops and then Toronto. It wasn’t the life he and Anne wanted to so they packed up and returned to Kelowna.
“It was at that time that we made up our mind that we had to find a way to stay in Kelowna,” he says.
So, in 1989 they founded the organization which would become the Society of Hope. “It was a hope and a prayer, literally,” says Stack.
Through their church activities, the Stacks had gotten to know a lot of single parents. “It seemed to me they had a difficult life,” he says, pointing out how men who divorce tend to see their standard of living increase while women, who usually end up caring for the kids, see theirs decrease.
“Our original vision was that we would start a society that would find ways to create jobs, we would start a daycare and we would start looking for ways to develop housing and so we did a little bit of all that,” says Stack.
The organization set about opening a daycare, along with small moving and cleaning businesses. But it was the housing that really took off.
The Royal Canadian Legion was running a few buildings in Rutland at the time, but were looking to get out of the housing racket. So Stack and his colleagues engineered a friendly takeover of the legion’s non-profit housing society.
They got themselves elected to the society’s board and disassociated it from the legion.
“There was no property sale,” says Stack. “We just took over their old society and called it the Society of Hope.”
The new society quickly got out of running a daycare and the other businesses and focused on growing its housing projects, which serve families, seniors and single parents.
Stack pours over plans for the Society of Hope's latest housing project. (Photo Adrian Nieoczym)
Stack pours over plans for the Society of Hope's latest housing project. (Photo Adrian Nieoczym)
 Depending on the kind of housing they have, residents in Society of Hope buildings pay rent that is either set at 10 to 15 per cent below market value or at a fixed percentage of their income.
The society has since grown to become the Interior’s largest non-profit housing provider, with 356 units on 12 sites. “Our organization has always wanted to be a growing organization,” says Stack.
And while many of the people running the society are motivated by their faith, Stack says religion plays no role in deciding who gets housing.
“We do a typical landlord thing [reference check] but I wouldn’t have a clue if people are believers or not or what their personal life choices are.”
With both their parents heavily involved in the Society of Hope, it was inevitable that the kids would be drawn in as well. Heather Stack remembers helping out with renovations when the society acquired a new building.
“We helped break down walls and bring snacks and we were indirectly involved pretty much throughout our lives,” she says.
According to Heather, the Stack family has always been tight-knit. When the kids were young, they were even home-schooled.
“We’re very fortunate to have maintained strong relationships with each other,” she says. “We’re all really close.”
And while her father was involved in some serious endeavours while she was growing up, he himself was not all that serious. In fact he was quite the prankster.
“He found this huge June bug that had died under our fridge and he kept it for years and he tied a little string around it and he’d go out in public and when someone wasn’t looking, he’d put it on the table,” she says. When they came back he’d start pulling the string so it would look like the bug was walking across the table. I think the saddest day of his life was when it finally fell apart. He lost his favourite toy…he’s a joker, always has been.”
As for her dad’s recent move into politics, Heather sees it as a natural step.
“He’s really very passionate about keeping Kelowna vibrant and developing and so I think it’s really neat for him to explore something he’s always been interested in in a deeper capacity,” she says.
Over the years, Stack has developed an enthusiasm for community planning and development. Before running successfully for council last November, he spent four years on the city’s housing committee and four years on the advisory planning commission.
After spending all that time simply advising council about how the city should evolve, he wanted to actually have a vote.
One of Stack’s campaign planks was his support for downtown redevelopment. And now that he is on council, he would like to see the city review a bunch of its zoning bylaws and come up with new design criteria for neighbourhoods.
“Mostly to maintain and protect their character but also to allow for some densification,” he says. “Look for creative ways so people can do affordable housing and denser housing.”
Despite essentially holding down two all-consuming jobs, one with the Society of Hope and one with the city, Stack manages to still find time to indulge his other passions, like playing the trumpet and going off on trail rides.
“I just love going back into the woods and riding my bike,” he says, adding the Mission Creek Greenway is his favourite place to go for a spin.
How does he manage to find the time for it all?
“I end up putting in lots of hours and my secret weapon is I come in at five in the morning for a couple of hours every morning,” he says. “And then I go home for breakfast.”
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The work is finally done at the Society of Hope Short Term housing project on Gordon Drive. This new building doubles the Society of Hope's capacity to provide short term housing to women and children in need. It is a great addition to the housing stock of the City. |
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Wendy's Dreamlift Day January 27, 2010 and January 2009 "All for a good cause!!" |
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Luke and Ron Cannan - Kelowna/Lake Country MP |
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Luke Stack and Member of Parliament Ron Cannan.
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