Taking a step to address the housing crisis in Calgary, Calgary mayor Jyoti Gondek announced applications are now open to charities, non-profits and Indigenous organizations seeking capital funding to build or acquire affordable housing.
The $60 million initiative is part of Calgary’s Home is Here housing strategy that will address homelessness and housing affordability.
“One in five Calgary households are unable to afford where they presently live. That’s almost 85,000 households who are spending more than 30 per cent of their income on housing. To address these realities, the city is focused on increasing the supply and non-market affordable housing income,” said Mayor Gondek.
The aim is to assist those in households earning $65,000 under the median and spending more than 30 per cent on housing.
To ensure the lowest income Calgarians are prioritized for non-market housing, the city is addressing three specific barriers: Access to capital, access to land and certainty of approval for these projects. The city plans to overcome these barriers through Home is Here.
The city has heard from seniors, youth, people with accessibility concerns and everyone in between who is simply struggling with housing. The mayor reassured citizens that this initiative is for any Calgarian who is struggling with housing costs.
“There’s no discrimination when it comes to the struggle that people are having in finding housing,” said Gondek.
The capital will give applicants an opportunity to buy land or potentially purchase existing buildings to create affordable housing.
“For example, if there’s a building that is in danger of being torn down or somehow converted to something else, it’s possible that one of our applicants could come in and rescue that building and retain it for affordable housing,” said Gondek.
The initiative is about leveraging dollars, according to Amanda Szpecht, Acting Manager, Housing Partnerships.
“We did intentionally reach out to our partners, a provincial level at the federal level to ensure that this program can stack with other funding programs.” said Szpecht
The city expects to leverage the $60 million investment and obtain $140 million from other levels of government and/or sources of funding.
Gondek wants to contribute on municipal level despite the responsibility of provincial and federal governments to implement affordable housing measures, describing the crisis as something municipal government is closest to and sees every day.
“We see what happens every day when people are without a home, and we simply will not let people suffer,” said Gondek.
