Highland Street in Haliburton County, Ontario.
Places for People (P4P) is on a mission to build more affordable housing in Haliburton County, one of Ontario’s lowest-income areas. But as an all-volunteer organization, accessing loans to buy property isn’t easy. When a local landlord offered to sell P4P a fiveplex property, they immediately wanted to snap it up. Except they didn’t have enough cash to buy it outright.
The owner of the property offered P4P a vendor take-back mortgage, essentially loaning P4P the funds they needed, at an interest rate of 6%, to facilitate the purchase. Given the high interest rate, according to Fay Martin, founder of Places for People, “we knew we needed to pay it back.”
Using community bonds to refinance debt
P4P turned to community bonds – a way to raise money from local investors, at a lower interest rate, to refinance the vendor take-back mortgage.
When Tapestry Community Capital first began working with P4P, there was concern that paying down debt wouldn’t be a “sexy” enough issue to grab investor interest. But the campaign sold out in a record-breaking nine weeks!
Why? Because Fay says investors were happy to see P4P taking action. The Haliburton County community urgently needed more affordable housing and by finding a way to buy the fiveplex, investors could see P4P was serious about addressing the crisis. They were very willing to help P4P refinance the more expensive loan.
Haliburton County community members gathered at a Places for People community bond event.
Turning one property into more
With the $850,000 raised from community bonds, P4P didn’t just pay off the expensive loan. They took things a step further:
- They consolidated all of their debt onto just two of their five properties.
- This freed up assets to buy a sixth property with 8 more units.
- Then, they leveraged their assets again to secure a line of credit from a local credit union – something they’ve never been able to do before.
“We very quickly did what we said we would do, which was continue to use our assets to build or acquire more rental properties in Haliburton County, and we did it with amazing speed.”
Fay Martin, Founder of Places for People
Newspaper clippings of Places for People’s community bond campaign.
Two takeaways
✅ Community bonds aren’t just for building new projects – they can also help refinance more expensive debt, freeing up capital to grow your impact.
✅ Investors are willing to support strategic, out-of-the-box financing solutions – these solutions don’t need to be “sexy”, they just need to work.
Today, Haliburton County has 18 deeply affordable rental homes and two market-rate units. And with a mainstream financial institution backing them for the first time in their history, P4P’s ability to create affordable housing is stronger than ever.
Think community bonds could help your organization refinance debt and grow? Get in touch with our team today!