Housing is essential for healthy and resilient communities. Residents have identified affordable housing as a clear need in the Basin, and the Trust has established affordable housing as one of its 13 strategic priorities.
Working with our partners, we’ve made progress in helping communities offer more affordable housing options. Now we’re getting ready to do even more. The Trust is allocating $5 million for each of the next three years to develop, manage and fund housing that meets community and regional needs.
“Our new housing initiative gives us a stronger framework for working with communities to help them move ahead with their affordable housing priorities. We’ve accomplished a lot working with our partners in affordable housing, and we have learned a lot about the best ways to approach housing issues,” said Aimee Ambrosone, the Trust’s lead on Housing Initiatives.
“Our experience has strengthened our ability to make effective partnerships. We want communities to continue to come forward with their housing priorities so that we can keep bringing together the partners that will help us accomplish the Basin’s housing goals.”
Along with the $15 million commitment to affordable housing, the Trust is establishing a target of creating 150 housing units over the next three years.
“We know that housing needs vary by community, location, size, demographics and local economics. Therefore our approach will have more than one focus. Our range of support will include researching housing needs to developing project proposals to capital grants for new projects,” Ambrosone explained.
Providing capital grants to help create housing units is a big part of the initiative, and the Trust will work in partnership with communities, funders and other organizations with complementary housing objectives.
Since 2009, the Trust has brought 405 units to 13 Basin communities through affordable housing initiatives with local housing organizations, the federal and provincial governments, and student housing initiatives with local colleges.
