Why aim for 20% community housing in Canada?
Canada is facing an unprecedented housing crisis, and finding sustainable solutions is urgent. Setting a target of 20% community housing (up from 3.5% currently) is a necessary step to ensure equitable housing access and greater community resilience. It’s a long-term vision rooted in sustainability, inclusion, and collective action.
Transforming how we build and collaborate
Achieving this target means reimagining the ways we plan, finance, and work together. It calls for hybrid models and bold partnerships that align mission and means.
It also requires the sector unlocks its economic potential with new financial approaches from reinvesting property equity to building mixed-income projects that balance affordability with long-term viability.
Shifting mindsets
Transforming the sector requires a shift in how we think, collaborate, and innovate. It means embracing a culture that is more open to experimentation and new operational models, while remaining true to the core values that define community housing: social justice, solidarity, and democratic governance.
For this cultural evolution to take root and endure, it must be grounded in a sector that is skilled, well-structured, and representative. By investing in professional capacity building, the Centre aims to strengthen sector expertise, standardize practices, and recognize knowledge drawn from on-the-ground experience. By promoting more diverse leadership, it creates space for a broader range of voices and lived experiences that truly reflect the communities being served. These strategic choices equip the sector to face transformation with greater confidence, coherence, and legitimacy.
Joining forces for success
Success lies in collaboration between government, community, philanthropy, and private capital. Strategic partnerships are key to unlocking resources, enabling large-scale coordinated action, streamlining processes and fostering innovation.
A realistic ambition
The 20% target is ambitious, but it is within reach. With courage, boldness and shared purpose, we can build a future where community housing is not the exception, but a central pillar of Canada’s housing system.
News on the 20% target
From faith-based properties to community housing: Building collaborations that work
Across Canada, faith-based organizations own land and buildings with enormous potential to serve their communities in new ways. Churches, former rectories, vacant buildings and underused properties could become much-needed community […]
How can you position your project to attract private investment?
Growing the non-market housing stock fast enough to meet the housing crisis takes more than public grants. Organizations are increasingly being encouraged to engage with private investors seeking both financial […]
Student Housing Nova Scotia: rebuilding to better fulfil the mission
After more than 50 years, Student Housing Nova Scotia’s (SHNS) was forced to reinvent itself to keep its mission alive when its agreement with a local university to run a […]
Lessons from six countries on growing community housing in Canada
How can Canada sustain the long-term growth of community housing? To help answer this question, the Centre commissioned researchers Duncan Maclennan and Steve Pomeroy to examine what has supported or […]