{"id":1228,"date":"2022-12-08T13:43:23","date_gmt":"2022-12-08T13:43:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tapestrycapital.ca\/?p=1228"},"modified":"2026-04-10T15:09:46","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T15:09:46","slug":"financing-affordable-housing-ottawa-community-land-trust","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/tapestrycapital.ca\/fr\/story\/financing-affordable-housing-ottawa-community-land-trust\/","title":{"rendered":"Financing Affordable Housing: Ottawa Community Land Trust"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI often have people come up to us and say, I love what you\u2019re doing, can I give you a few thousand out of my RRSPs to invest,\u201d says Ray Sullivan, Executive Director of the Ottawa Community Land Trust (OCLT). The problem for most non-profit affordable housing organizations, he says, is that they don\u2019t currently have a pathway to allow their supporters to do this. We sat down with Ray, and Ottawa Community Land Trust Board Members, Lisa Ker and Glenn Grignonn to explore how Community Bonds might create a new avenue to engage their community while also unlocking much needed capital.<\/span><\/p>\n

Le <\/span>Fonds foncier communautaire d'Ottawa<\/span><\/a> was established in 2021 with the mission to preserve, maintain and support the creation of diverse and affordable housing in the Ottawa region. Their business model is straightforward – acquire properties that have existing affordable market rents, remove them from the private market, protect existing tenants, and then lease the properties out to local non-profits and co-operatives to manage.<\/span><\/p>\n

ACORN Canada\u2019s report on the <\/span>housing crisis in Ottawa<\/span><\/a> is dire. Market rents rose by 26% between 2005 and 2015, while median income only increased by 4%, and supply is not nearly high enough to meet demand. To add to the difficulties, the vast majority of affordable housing providers in Ottawa, and Ontario at large are small housing providers, operating less than a hundred units, meaning it is very difficult for them to achieve economies of scale and compete with the private market. \u201cOf the roughly 750 members of the Ontario Non-profit Housing Association, 700 of them operate less than 100 units of housing,\u201d shares Glenn.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

OCLT is particularly interested in acquiring small to mid-sized apartment buildings. \u201cIf they were bought by a commercial investment group, they would solely be interested in their return on investment and aggressively try to turn those units over and raise rents to increase the cash flow from the property,\u201d says Ray.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Most of the properties they are looking at will be eligible for traditional debt financing for 60% to 70% of the total property value, and OCLT is currently collaborating with the Ottawa Community Foundation to develop impact investment tools to cover the remaining gap. \u201cIf we were to rely on government sources, it would take over a year to secure the funds, and we would lose the properties,\u201d says Ray, \u201cwe need to be able to mobilize quickly.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ray, Lisa and Glenn all share the opinion that these are not \u201cfundraisable\u201d projects. \u201cPeople who want to make significant contributions and gifts to organizations and causes get excited about being part of a construction project where you can generate a lot of buzz,\u201d says Lisa, speaking from years of experience leading fundraising initiatives. \u201cIt seems that acquisition of existing affordable housing doesn\u2019t have quite the same appeal. This is a big problem because every year, Canada is losing 64,000 units of affordable housing – and 20,000 are in Ontario alone. That means for every one unit built, four are lost.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ray shares that he would like to see the impact investment capital developed with the Ottawa Community Foundation become a revolving fund to help them acquire multiple buildings and protect as many units as possible. After acquiring the building, OCLT would repay the initial impact investors with funds raised by issuing Community Bonds. The idea is beneficial in a number of ways, first being that the initial capital would then be available for future acquisitions, and second, it would reduce the risk to community investors because the acquisition would already be complete. \u201cThese buildings are already rented out and have a consistent revenue stream, so we feel confident,\u201d says Ray.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The team also sees the potential to use community bond funds for renovations on the buildings. \u201cThere is boundless potential for improvements in energy efficiency in affordable housing,\u201d says Lisa. The team agrees this is an area that really needs more attention, but expertise is scarce. \u201cI think there\u2019s a lack of capacity in the sector,\u201d says Glenn, referring to both energy efficiency retrofits and Community Bonds, \u201cand when people don\u2019t understand it, they don\u2019t want to do it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Lisa Ker was formerly the Executive Director of Ottawa Salus, a supportive housing provider. \u201cWe never sufficiently ventured into the world of social finance,\u201d she shares, \u201cwe didn\u2019t have the tools, resources and education to understand how to mobilize that type of capital.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLike many things in the sector, once you get the momentum going, then people want to get on board,\u201d says Glenn. The team seems excited to plough the way in terms of Community Investment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We wrap up the session with everyone being excited about the potential of Community Bonds. \u201cThe way you have brought this down to the community level and made it accessible to smaller and medium-sized housing providers – well- that\u2019s just pretty cool,\u201d says Ray.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c0 propos de cette s\u00e9rie d'articles<\/h3>\n

En octobre 2021, Tapestry a \u00e9t\u00e9 s\u00e9lectionn\u00e9e pour participer \u00e0 un\u00a0Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 canadienne d'hypoth\u00e8ques et de logement<\/a>\u00a0programme de la (SCHL) intitul\u00e9 \u00ab\u00a0Le d\u00e9fi de l'offre de logements<\/i><\/a>. Ce concours novateur encourage les r\u00e9sidents, les parties prenantes et les experts de tout le pays \u00e0 proposer des solutions cr\u00e9atives en mati\u00e8re de logement. L'objectif : contribuer \u00e0 r\u00e9pondre au besoin urgent du Canada en logements s\u00fbrs et abordables en supprimant les obstacles \u00e0 la cr\u00e9ation d'une nouvelle offre.<\/p>\n

Tapestry a particip\u00e9 \u00e0 la deuxi\u00e8me phase du programme,\u00a0Pour commencer<\/a>, qui vise \u00e0 trouver des solutions aux difficult\u00e9s rencontr\u00e9es avant le lancement d'un projet, telles que la r\u00e9sistance des communaut\u00e9s et l'obtention de financements. Le programme a octroy\u00e9 des subventions d'incubation aux 29 organisations s\u00e9lectionn\u00e9es afin de leur permettre de d\u00e9velopper davantage et de tester leurs propositions de solutions.<\/p>\n

Au cours de ces six mois de recherche et de consultation, nous avons eu l'occasion de nous entretenir avec plus de 40 acteurs du secteur du logement abordable, qu'il s'agisse de bailleurs, de consultants en d\u00e9veloppement immobilier, de bailleurs de fonds ou d'\u00e9tablissements de cr\u00e9dit. Chaque personne et chaque organisation consult\u00e9e a contribu\u00e9 \u00e0 l'\u00e9laboration conjointe de notre proposition de solution.<\/p>\n

La s\u00e9rie d'articles de blog intitul\u00e9e \u201c Financer le logement abordable gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 la force de la communaut\u00e9 \u201d pr\u00e9sente les enseignements tir\u00e9s et les t\u00e9moignages recueillis aupr\u00e8s de certaines des formidables organisations avec lesquelles nous avons collabor\u00e9.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":1229,"template":"","format":[],"topic":[78],"class_list":["post-1228","story","type-story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","story_topic-affordable-housing"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFinancing Affordable Housing: Ottawa Community Land Trust - Tapestry Capital<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Ottawa Community Land Trust was established in 2021 with the mission to preserve, maintain and support the creation of diverse and affordable housing in the Ottawa region.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tapestrycapital.ca\/fr\/histoire\/financing-affordable-housing-ottawa-community-land-trust\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"fr_CA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Financing Affordable Housing: Ottawa Community Land Trust - 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