Rethinking growth in community housing

1- From pressure to new possibilities

How can community housing organizations strengthen their financial viability while continuing to pursue their social mission?

This question was at the heart of a recent webinar from the Centre’s Knowledge Sharing Series featuring Rooted Community Development Partners (Rooted). Formerly known as Dartmouth Housing, the organization has undergone a significant transformation over the last decade, evolving from a small nonprofit housing provider into an organization pursuing long-term growth through acquisitions, mixed-income approaches, portfolio development, and strategic partnerships.

During the webinar, CEO Nick Russell shared reflections on this transformation as an evolving process shaped by changing realities, difficult decisions, and organizational learning.

“We were not built in a day,” Russell explained during the discussion, reflecting on Rooted’s trajectory from a period of decline and survival toward a more ambitious growth strategy.

Like many community housing organizations across Canada, Rooted emerged from the wave of nonprofit housing development supported by federal programs in the 1980s and early 1990s. At its peak, the organization managed approximately 140 units. But after funding programs disappeared, the organization entered what Russell described as a difficult period, marked by challenging decisions, including the sale of housing units to sustain operations.

When Russell joined the organization in 2014, Rooted’s portfolio had shrunk to just over 100 units, and the organization was focused primarily on survival.
“The programming let us down, and we were too dependent on it,” he explained.

That experience became a defining lesson. Rather than relying exclusively on future public funding, Rooted gradually began building stronger internal sustainability through acquisitions, partnerships, diversified revenue and portfolio growth.

The organization’s trajectory accelerated following the launch of the National Housing Strategy in 2017 and the emergence of new provincial housing programs in Nova Scotia. But Russell emphasized that these opportunities only became possible because Rooted had already put in years of work to stabilize operations and strengthen the organization’s foundations.

The webinar therefore raised a broader question that extends well beyond Rooted itself: How can community housing organizations position themselves for sustainable growth within a context of rising costs, increasing complexity, and uncertain funding environments?

Rooted’s experience points to a series of interconnected shifts involving governance, organizational capacity, risk management, financing, and partnerships.

2- Building the foundation for growth

One of the clearest lessons emerging from Rooted’s experience is that growth does not begin with a new project, but with organizational readiness.
Before pursuing large-scale expansion, Rooted focused on stabilizing its operations and strengthening its internal capacity. This included addressing deferred maintenance, improving systems and processes, clarifying governance structures, and gradually developing expertise in areas such as financial modelling, development, and operations.

For several years, the organization concentrated on what Russell described as “getting our house in order.”

This work was not separate from growth. It made growth possible. “Growth depends on having the solid foundation operationally to support it,” Russell explained. Without that foundation, expansion can increase exposure to risk rather than strengthen the organization.

The discussion repeatedly returned to the importance of conducting an honest assessment of organizational capacity and risk tolerance.
This includes understanding:

• what an organization can realistically manage;
• where critical expertise gaps exist;
• how much financial and operational risk can be absorbed;
• and whether internal systems are strong enough to support growth.

The webinar also highlighted how difficult this process can be for organizations operating in survival mode. Many nonprofit housing providers face chronic capacity shortages, aging portfolios, staffing pressures, and increasing operational complexity. In these conditions, simply maintaining stability can consume most available resources.

Rooted’s experience suggests that sustainable growth often requires organizations to deliberately create the internal conditions necessary to move beyond constant crisis management.

This shift also involves changing organizational culture. Russell described the importance of creating an environment where staff can exercise entrepreneurial thinking within clearly defined strategic boundaries. “It’s about having the sandbox or the guardrails for staff to go away and do what they do best: work relationships, find opportunity, create value,” he explained.

In this sense, organizational readiness is not simply technical or financial. It also involves creating structures that support initiative, innovation, and long-term thinking.

3- Governance and strategy as levers

As Rooted evolved, its governance evolved alongside it. The organization gradually shifted from an operational board to a governance-focused one. In the organization’s earlier stages, board members were often deeply involved in day-to-day operations out of necessity. As internal capacity increased, governance responsibilities became more strategic and less operational.

This evolution emerged progressively alongside the organization’s growth and increasing internal capacity.

The discussion highlighted several governance-related elements that supported this transition:

• intentional board recruitment;
• stronger alignment between governance and organizational strategy;
• clearer distinctions between governance and operations;
• and increased attention to risk management.

Russell also emphasized the importance of aligning board composition with the organization’s stage of growth and risk profile.

For Rooted, this increasingly meant recruiting board members with expertise in areas such as real estate, finance, governance, and strategic planning.
“If your goal is to create, build, and acquire housing, ideally, you should have somebody on your board with a financial background or development experience,” Amanda Knight, program manager for the Centre, observed during the discussion, a point Russell strongly reinforced.

The webinar also explored how governance structures influence organizational growth more broadly. Operational boards may play an important role during the early stages of development, particularly in smaller organizations with limited staffing. But remaining permanently in an operational model can also limit organizational growth.

“The tendency is for board members to lean in out of necessity,” Russell noted. “But it’s limiting.” The transition toward governance-oriented structures therefore becomes part of broader organizational maturation.

Strategic planning also emerged as a key organizational tool.

Rooted’s strategic plan was not developed as a static document. Russell described it as a multi-year process involving board engagement, organizational alignment, and continuous refinement. “It was a three-year process,” he explained. “There was a lot of buy-in on where we were going.”

The organization’s strategic priorities now include:

• becoming Nova Scotia’s preferred rental housing provider;
• growing its portfolio to 3,000 units by 2035;
• and becoming a partner of choice within the community housing sector.

Importantly, Rooted intentionally avoided narrowly defining itself only through affordability metrics. “We talked about optimizing affordability, but we didn’t corner ourselves into that,” Russell explained. This reflects a broader theme running throughout the webinar: the need to balance mission, viability, and organizational flexibility.

The organization also developed what Russell referred to as a “growth plan,” a more operational tool aligned with the broader strategic plan. The purpose of this framework is to create what he described as a “sandbox” within which staff can pursue opportunities confidently while remaining aligned with board-approved risk parameters. “It’s about preparing the sandbox that meets ambition,” he explained.

In practice, strategy becomes less about producing a document and more about creating alignment, defining acceptable risk, and supporting coherent decision-making over time.

4- From projects to portfolio

One of the most important shifts made by Rooted was the transition from a project-by-project mindset towards a portfolio approach.

Rather than evaluating each development individually, the organization increasingly began assessing how different assets contribute to the overall strength, stability, and long-term viability of the portfolio as a whole.

This changes the way success is defined.

In a project-by-project logic, each individual development is often expected to maximize affordability, financial performance, operational stability, and social outcomes simultaneously. A portfolio approach recognizes that different assets can play different roles within a broader organizational system.

Some projects may prioritize affordability or social impact. Others may focus more heavily on financial performance or organizational stability. “What matters is the overall balance of the portfolio,” says Russell.

He framed this shift through a provocative question: “Is it better to have a 100-unit building at market rent… or no building at all?”

The point was not to move away from affordability as a mission. Rather, it was to rethink how affordability can be sustained over time. In Rooted’s view, long-term affordability depends increasingly on organizational strength, portfolio resilience, and diversified revenue generation rather than relying entirely on uncertain subsidy programs.

This perspective reflects broader changes taking place across the sector. Rising development costs, financing pressures, construction complexity, and funding uncertainty are forcing many organizations to rethink traditional models.

Portfolio thinking creates additional flexibility:

• it allows organizations to distribute risk across multiple assets;
• strengthen cash flow;
• improve borrowing capacity;
• and create stronger financial resilience over time.

This approach also changes how organizations evaluate growth opportunities. Rather than asking whether a single project can achieve every objective on its own, organizations begin asking how a project contributes to broader organizational goals.

In Rooted’s case, this portfolio logic has become central to how the organization evaluates acquisitions, financing structures, partnerships, and long-term sustainability.

5- Acquisition, diversification, and financial viability

The webinar also highlighted the important role acquisitions have played in Rooted’s growth strategy. Compared with new development, acquisitions can provide a faster and lower-risk path to growth while generating immediate revenue.

“This accelerates capacity development, generates immediate cash flow, and significantly reduces exposure to risk,” Russell explained.
Acquisition can therefore serve several functions simultaneously:

• increasing the size of the portfolio;
• strengthening organizational cash flow;
• improving borrowing capacity;
• building operational experience;
• and creating more stable financial conditions for future growth.

This does not mean new development becomes unimportant. Rooted’s first major development project, Crosswoods, represented a major organizational milestone after nearly a decade of preparation and planning.

But the webinar highlighted how acquisitions can complement development by creating a more stable growth trajectory, particularly for organizations in earlier stages of expansion.

The discussion also explored the role of mixed-income models and revenue diversification. Rooted’s approach increasingly relies on creating financially viable portfolios where public funding supports affordability rather than fully sustaining operations. Within this framework, mixed-income models become an important stabilizing mechanism.

By combining different rent levels within a portfolio, organizations can:

• strengthen operating revenue;
• improve financing flexibility;
• and preserve affordability over time at the portfolio level.

This approach reflects a broader evolution in thinking about financial sustainability within community housing. Rather than depending exclusively on government programs, organizations are increasingly exploring how stronger internal financial structures can support long-term mission delivery.

At the same time, Russell repeatedly emphasized that public funding still plays an essential role. The shift is not about replacing public investment, but about reducing vulnerability to programming volatility.

6- Partnerships as part of the model

Partnerships emerged throughout the webinar as one of the central conditions supporting Rooted’s growth.

Russell described Rooted as a facilitator working across a broad ecosystem of public agencies, private financing partners, community organizations, development actors, and housing stakeholders. “[We are] trying to bring different outcomes together and package them up into stronger outputs,” he explained.

Partnerships serve several important functions:

• filling expertise gaps;
• reducing exposure to risk;
• creating operational capacity;
• improving access to financing;
• and enabling organizations to pursue projects that would otherwise remain inaccessible.

Rooted has combined provincial funding and acquisition programs, CMHC financing tools, private lending relationships, and a mixed-income approach to support long-term portfolio growth. Russell also emphasized the importance of becoming a “preferred partner” by building a strong operational track record and demonstrating responsible stewardship of public funding.

The discussion also highlighted how partnerships can help smaller or rural organizations. Russell encouraged organizations to realistically assess where they add value and where partnerships are needed. “If you don’t have those experiences to fill those gaps, acknowledge that maybe that’s not a good space to play in,” he explained when talking about the risk associated with real estate development.

Rather than attempting to independently manage every aspect of development and operations, organizations may benefit from:

• partnerships with larger nonprofits;
• collaborations with experienced developers;
• consolidations or mergers;
• shared service approaches;
• or regional expertise models.

Russell stressed that these approaches are not signs of weakness, but practical strategies for reducing risk and strengthening long-term sustainability.

This perspective connects with broader conversations currently taking place across the community housing sector, including recent collaborative initiatives emerging in Eastern Quebec focused on consolidation and shared capacity-building models.

7- Reframing the tensions

The webinar also highlighted several tensions that shape community housing work. How can organizations maintain affordability while ensuring financial viability? How much risk is necessary for growth? At what point does caution begin limiting organizational potential? And how can organizations continue expanding while remaining aligned with their mission?

Rooted’s experience suggests that these tensions are not problems to solve once and for all. They are ongoing realities that require continuous adjustment. Growth, affordability, financial sustainability, and risk management are deeply interconnected.

The webinar highlighted how portfolio approaches, revenue diversification, acquisitions, governance structures, and partnerships can help organizations create more flexibility in navigating these tensions over time. Importantly, Russell also challenged some of the assumptions that can shape community housing discussions. Organizations are often expected to maximize affordability, eliminate risk, and expand rapidly simultaneously. But in practice, difficult trade-offs are unavoidable.

Rooted’s approach suggests that long-term impact may depend less on maximizing affordability within each individual project and more on building organizational structures capable of sustaining affordability over decades.

This requires:

• stronger governance;
• clearer risk frameworks;
• diversified financing approaches;
• operational maturity;
• and strategic flexibility.

The webinar also highlighted how organizational culture influences these tensions. Russell repeatedly emphasized the importance of creating space for entrepreneurial thinking, initiative, and adaptability within nonprofit organizations.

This does not mean abandoning mission. Rather, it reflects an effort to create organizations capable of responding to increasingly complex housing environments.

8- From vision to readiness

Rooted’s trajectory illustrates a process of transformation rather than a fixed blueprint.

The organization’s evolution involved:

• stabilizing operations;
• strengthening governance;
• clarifying strategy;
• building partnerships;
• diversifying financing approaches;
• developing portfolio thinking;
• and gradually increasing organizational capacity.

Each of these changes reinforced the others over time.

The webinar therefore points toward a broader lesson for the community housing sector. Sustainable growth depends not only on developing more housing units, but also on strengthening the organizational systems capable of supporting long-term viability.

Readiness is built progressively. Rooted’s experience also demonstrates that growth is rarely linear. It involves experimentation, adaptation, setbacks, and continuous reassessment. As Russell emphasized, Rooted’s current model should not be viewed as definitive.

“It’s a perspective of where we’re at right now,” he explained. “That perspective changes all the time.”

Rooted’s experience suggests that the future of community housing will increasingly depend on organizations’ ability to balance social mission with stronger operational and financial foundations. Growth, in this context, becomes a process of building organizational capacity capable of sustaining expansion and impact over time.

Featured photo: Dundas rehabilitation project – Downtown Dartmouth, NS (c) Rooted