The Community Housing Transformation Centre (CHTC) is working to ensure all Canadians have an affordable, secure and decent place to call home.
A non-profit organization, CHTC was founded in 2018 by a network of community housing organizations. A catalyst of growth, the Centre’s work aims to support the growth of community housing across Canada by supporting and promoting the sector’s advocacy, economic viability, growth and its improvements in efficiency.
CHTC provides funding, tools and services to all community housing stakeholders including Non-profit housing organizations; Housing co-operatives; Federations; Associations; and Government stakeholders.
Transforming the Sector
In its fourth year, the CHTC has established itself as a prominent player in the community housing landscape across Canada. Though originally launched as part of the National Housing Strategy, the federal government is no longer its sole source of funding.
“While the initial premise was to have a 10-year life, we firmly believe that 10 years is not enough to accomplish our mandate properly,” says François Fayad, Communications Director. “Completing the transformation of the housing sector will require more time and more engagement. As such, CHTC has chosen the path of resilience, innovation, and growth. In this spirit, we are working on developing agreements with the provincial and territorial governments to fund CHTC’s activities that will contribute to further growth in their jurisdictions. We’re also actively working to increase partnerships with private-sector companies who understand the positive impact of expanding community housing supply on the country’s economy. This includes developing housing solutions for the middle class, for current and future levels of immigration or to meet the housing needs of workers in the North.”
The Centre believes that in order to fulfill its mandate and effectively address the housing crisis, the community sector must be proactive and bold. “Transformation, for us, means contributing to the sector means to succeed,” says Fayad. The goal of CHTC is that it will participate more effectively in the sustainable growth of the sector through impact projects.
“The Centre’s objective is to develop the Canadian community housing sphere and establish an effective, resilient and inclusive model that will enable all people to be safely and affordably housed, now and in the future,” says Fayad. “Collectively, we have the power to strengthen and grow the sector to meet the current and future needs of Canadians.”
The housing crisis has intensified over the past years, says Fayad. “The warning signs were already plentiful in the early 2000s, and while many of those involved in the community housing arena have sounded the alarm repeatedly over the past two decades, no major effort has been undertaken to prevent the crisis. Today, millions of households and individuals are living in increasingly precarious conditions, if not outright homelessness, and policies lack the necessary clout to tackle the systemic damage this situation causes.”
The sources of the issue are well known: speculation, concentration of land and property ownership, financialization, commodification, renoviction, short-term tourist accommodation, globalization, tax incentives, and discrimination.
The answers to the problem are also known: community housing, land trusts, lease registries, rent control, fair taxation, humane and social urban planning, inclusion and diversity, etc.
“Although more and more political, financial and legislative players are finally acknowledging the issue, the solutions so far remain quite modest when compared to the magnitude of the task at hand,” says Fayad. “While the public authorities own a large part of the responsibility, the community housing sector must have the courage to recognize that it wasn’t as proactive and entrepreneurial as it could have been. We have the means at our disposal to begin mitigating the crisis in part. The sector’s legitimacy requires acting without delay and assuming a leadership position regarding this matter by taking the necessary measures for change.”
It is within this framework that The Community Housing Transformation Centre was created and has operated for the past four years.
“Using ambition, without illusions, CHTC works to facilitate the quantitative development and qualitative evolution of community housing,” says Fayad. “Whether through the provision of funding or services, all regions have benefited from more than $28 million in allocations since our creation.”
According to CHTC’s partners and numerous sector stakeholders across Canada, significant contributions are being made to move the needle towards the transformation of the sector by using more of the sector’s own resources to leverage the significant, albeit insufficient, contributions committed by the different order of government to overcome the housing crisis.
Over the last year, CHTC has engaged in more partnerships than ever with local housing providers, representative organizations, as well as several governments and agencies. It has also been seeking to increase its partnerships with the private sector. Doing so allowed them to leverage their financial and expertise contributions to improve the community housing sector’s future, says Fayad. “But as effective and efficient as we were, more is required to stop the dramatic disappearance of affordable homes in the Canadian market. Over 20 affordable units are lost in the for-profit market for each unit created in the community housing. This drop makes it harder and harder to correct the situation between people’s needs and the market’s ability to respond to the situation. Investing to build more units using a community housing model is a sound choice since they will remain affordable. This would provide housing solutions for those in greatest need, but also for the middle class who is less and less able to afford housing in urban centres.”
And still, equity-denied communities, particularly Indigenous and Black communities, are carrying a disproportionate burden as they continue to be disadvantaged in the housing system.
Correcting the imbalance will require more action and diverse strategies. “The Centre is currently working on projects whose scale is far beyond what has been seen in recent decades,” says Fayad.
Despite the enormous challenges ahead, Fayad is confident the future is full of potential and the promise of success. “We can no longer be satisfied with comfort and the tried and true. Instead, boldness and innovation are required if we want to survive. Community housing should be a desirable housing model for anyone, not a temporary or shameful solution.
A society where housing is genuinely considered a fundamental human right is within reach and our actions reinforce achieving that vision.”
For more information, please visit www.centre.support
