(Pictured: Greater Victoria Housing Societies Building @ 330 Goldstream Avenue in Langford, B.C.)
Our region faces significant real-estate challenges - from a lack of climate-ready affordable housing options for individuals and families, to insufficient spaces for non-profits delivering critical community services and programs, to the loss of community-owned land and buildings due to development or financial pressures.
At the same time, many mission-driven organizations hold land, financial resources, or other assets that can be leveraged to create more affordable housing and to meet a range of community space needs but can lack the early-stage funding and resources required to move a real-estate development project forward.
From mixed-use projects combining affordable housing with community programs, commercial spaces or community hubs - these initiatives can increase affordable housing for low to moderate income households all while increasing community ownership, maximizing community benefits and generating future revenue streams for organizations.
Vancity Community Foundation wants to accelerate this work by supporting the community to retain, acquire, and develop or re-develop community real estate assets for the purposes of climate-ready affordable housing that will maximize community benefit.
Our approach is to build the capacity of organizations to conceive, plan, and undertake impactful and enterprising affordable housing real estate projects and to connect them with the resources they need - partner connections, grant funding, and creative financing - to advance their projects along the development path.
We provide a comprehensive suite of supports that can help you move your affordable housing real estate initiative forward from concept to reality. Whether you are just starting to explore your real estate strategy and options or getting ready to move forward with development and construction, we can help.
check out our affordable housing program to learn more
As a charitable Foundation, our primary focus is working with non-profit, co-operative, and Indigenous organization - whether working independently or in partnership with for-profit or non-profit real estate developers or other stakeholders. Priority is given to initiatives that are member organizations and/or located in the Vancity service regions: Metro Vancouver, the Fraser Valley, Southern Vancouver Island, Squamish, and Alert Bay.