CANMORE – A potential partner to help increase affordable housing is looking to join forces with the Town of Canmore.
Partners for Affordable Housing – a non-profit foundation to help bring different stakeholders together to aid development of affordable housing – requested $250,000 at Canmore council’s July 2 meeting. If approved, the funding ask would see the Town partner with private sector, public sector, community housing providers and philanthropic donors – also known as P4 – to offset long-term costs in housing construction.
A motion directed Town staff to return with a report for additional information on the request for its Aug. 20 meeting. It would also include a recommended source for the $250,000 in case council were to move forward with the request.
Council’s procedural bylaw has any delegation making a request return to the next council meeting for decision.
The relatively new group would act as an aggregator of P4 groups, which could financially help local non-market housing projects.
“The equation is really difficult to bring all those partners to the table because what you need is a designated resource to facilitate those connections, start the conversation and keep the ball rolling,” said Jolene Livingston, the non-profit’s founder and CEO.
She said an initial investment grant of $250,000 would work on up to five below-market community housing projects, establish an advisory council to help with those projects, create an awareness campaign, look for potential donors and work with other levels of government to get funding.
Livingston said they’ve had conversations with Airdrie, Calgary and Edmonton and have the province on board. She said they’ve also had conversations with Canmore Community Housing. The request is $250,000 regardless of the size of the municipality, she noted.
“Someone has to be first in or nobody’s first in. The Government of Alberta took a giant leap of faith … We appealed to their ability to innovate,” she said.
Livingston said they prioritize working with communities that received the federal government’s Housing Accelerator Fund. Though Canmore’s application was rejected, she said they were familiar with ongoing projects with non-market housing such as the Palliser Trail area structure plan and Lawrence Grassi Middle School area redevelopment plan.
The Housing Accelerator Fund was relaunched July 15 and will accept applications until Sept. 13 after $400 million was included in the federal government’s 2024 budget.
Partners for Affordable Housing is a foundation to “establish unique partnerships and sponsorships with government, corporate and philanthropic communities to address the affordable housing crisis.”
It indicated 4.4 million homes – three million affordable and 1.4 million moderate and median income – were needed in Canada, according to the Office of the Federal Housing Advocate.
The approach would have community housing providers, private sector, public sector and philanthropic donors work to create housing builds.
The organization’s mandate is to get more funding, have innovative ideas, increase awareness, provide expertise and share risk. It has a goal of raising $1.1 billion by 2034 to help create 27,300 non-market housing units.
“If we’re working closely with you and the conditions are right, we have no doubt we can raise significant amount of money in this community for you. There is a lot of untapped potential,” Livingston said.
“We’re looking for projects that have good legs, have already gone through a level of red tape and rigour that we can start working on right away. … It’s now a matter of making the stacking and scaling equation work.”
Livingston gave the example of helping with the Rocky View Foundation’s Abrio Place in Airdrie over 12 months.
She said it had $13.8 million in project costs, but ended up with $4 million in public sector grants and $661,775 in philanthropic donations to reduce the debt load.
“That was a 12-month initiative. If we have a runway that’s longer than that, we know our impact can be greater,” Livingston said.
She noted the non-profit is familiar with the challenges of Canmore such as high cost of living and the difficulty of getting market housing. According to its website, the organization has two people listed from Canmore – Charlene Butler and former deputy minister Marcia Nelson – as part of its advisory council.
“There are many providers – thousands across Canada – ready to bring below-market housing to market but the funding gap is very difficult to stack and scale,” Livingston said. “The financial equation just doesn’t work, but there are many ways to approach it.”
Canmore Mayor Sean Krausert said council and the Town have long-term concerns of the town “going the route many mountain communities have gone before where it becomes an enclave of those who can afford it and everybody else gets bused in. You lose your community dynamic.”
He said it’s the aim to significantly increase the amount of non-market housing in Canmore in the coming years.
“We’ve been exploring bold, creative solutions,” said Krausert. “I believe the items we’ve already brought forth is going to move the needle on non-market housing more than all previous efforts combined.”
