The Community Foundation Grey Bruce is looking into launching a corporation to encourage affordable housing development.
Foundation Executive Director Stuart Reid says the development of the Community Development Corporation comes following talks over the last few years about the local affordable housing ecosystem.
“It would catalyze opportunities and bring social finance tools into the marketplace, hopefully bringing more affordable housing starts to support housing for all in Grey and Bruce,” says Reid. “We hope the Community Development Corporation will be around for a long time but, housing is the first priority that we see in the next couple of years and it may evolve into other concerns like regional transportation, or arts and culture or the environment. It really is around to do good things that are necessary to maintain well-being for all the people of Grey and Bruce.”
He adds the corporation will also likely be a not -for-profit entity which will offer mentorship and technical level support for community housing projects.
“We hope it will be actively initiating developments and trying to get engaged with affordable housing developments through projects on the ground in Grey and Bruce,” says Reid.
The corporation is still in the early phases of development, and the Community Foundation has brought in consultants to help design how it will operate.
“Over the next year we will be engaged in that development and we are relying on a lot of community partnership and other alliances with existing agencies that can help us get to the finish line on this,” says Reid.
Reid adds they are looking at the possibility of local investment into affordable housing projects through social financing.
“We are really interested in learning about how to offer community bonds to draw capital to support housing work, and those community bonds are an opportunity for people that are interested in making change here in Grey Bruce. They can actually invest locally and get a return on their investment through a bond, but also be a participant in raising that capital that is going to catalyze some of this building, or retrofitting, or maintaining affordable units in our region,” says Reid.
The Community Foundation aims to get the corporation off the ground sometime in the next year.