If an affordable housing block is at risk of being bought and redeveloped, a new federal housing fund will allow non-profits, cooperatives, and Indigenous governments to intervene.
The Canada Rental Protection Fund is supposed to address the kind of incident that happened in Yellowknife last month, where some Housing First tenants lost their homes because a private developer took over their building. The fund can help groups fend off that private cash.
However, the manager of a non-profit housing provider in Yellowknife says he isn’t sure the fund would provide enough support to make new property ownership a sustainable venture.
Announced late last month, the fund – worth $1.5 billion – provides money to purchase existing rental properties and keep them affordable for the long term.
“Those existing buildings often have a reasonable amount of affordability baked in but, when they’re for sale and they change hands, you often lose that affordability under new ownership and new management,” said Ray Sullivan, chair of the Canada Housing Acquisition Fund, which oversees the new grants.
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The federal government estimates the fund has the potential to protect 7,000 affordable rental homes across the country over the next five years.
In September, the Yellowknife Women’s Society made an appeal for the public’s help after all 26 of the society’s Housing First clients were issued eviction notices. (Housing First is supposed to help chronically homeless adults get into stable housing.)
The evictions came after the sale of six apartment buildings to Balto Capital Inc and a separate notice from another private real estate operator, Northview, the women’s society stated at the time.
Sullivan read about those evictions. “This is the pattern we see across the country,” he said.
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“When that ‘for sale’ sign goes up on the front yard, the next result is tenants out on the streets. Whether it’s through rapid rent increases, through rent evictions, whatever it is – we see that displacement.”
Not only does this cause turmoil for tenants being forced out, he said, but those affordable housing units are lost to the broader market.
“When we look at the statistics across the country,” said Sullivan, “for every one new affordable home that’s built with government assistance, we’re losing 11 in the private market.”
While a lot of government assistance is geared toward building new housing – which Sullivan acknowledged is important – he said that approach on its own “doesn’t work when there’s a giant hole in the bottom of the bucket and we’re actually losing ground.”
He said the fund will provide both low-interest and non-repayable loans to organizations across the country through a two-stage application process.
One of those stages involves pre-qualification for the funding. That way, when a building becomes available, the fund and its applicants can move quickly to acquire the property.
“You need to be able to beat the private market,” said Sullivan.
However, the program doesn’t offer one thing that some non-profits consider vital to any purchase: operational funding for the years after you buy the building, to help you run it.
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In an email to Cabin Radio, Frédérique Dombrowski – a spokesperson for the Canadian Housing Acquisition Fund – said that while the program supports the purchase of rental properties and work needed to keep units safe and viable, it does not provide ongoing operating subsidies to housing providers.
Tony Brushett, executive director of Yellowknife’s Salvation Army, said the fund “sounds great” but he’s unlikely to be submitting an application.
While the Salvation Army currently operates a men’s shelter and transitional housing, Brushett said it isn’t yet a landlord and doesn’t have the resources required to become one.
“The barrier for us would be becoming a landlord,” said Brushett, “which we can’t do without the promise of a ton of operational funding for a property manager, maintenance staff, and likely even security.”