Leverage Community Wealth for Affordable Housing

A priority area for the Institute’s Social Financing and Affordable Housing Group is learning how to Leverage Community Wealth for Affordable Housing.

On February 11th, community members, housing professionals, county and municipal leaders came together for a virtual event hosted by The Institute’s Social Finance and Housing Group to introduce Community Wealth as an innovative way to finance affordable housing for our communities. More than 60 participants, representing various sectors and counties, attended this first of a 3-part to better understand what Community Wealth is, plus why and how it is being used to create affordable housing.

Traditional financing and policy choices rely on the private market to provide homes; this model is failing to deliver housing for all households, especially those working in low to middle-income sectors. 

The concept of leveraging of community wealth is a systems- changing model that redirects wealth and control of assets back into the community, creating more permanently affordable housing; something
the private-market financing cannot do.

We continue to learn more about the Whole Community Approach to Housing which leverages community wealth in innovative ways to achieve affordability and help communities reach their goals.

Highlights of the Event

• Dynamic presentations demonstrating real-life examples of community wealth building led to a vibrant ‘chat’ experience
• Consultation around the benefits of collaboration regionally to achieve scale
• Benefits of building capacity and expertise via a Community
• Development Organization tasked with leveraging community wealth mechanisms such as land trusts, co-ops increasing access to land and capital for affordable homes.
• The benefits of collaboration among institutions, communities and individuals for affordable housing (local, provincial and federal levels)
• The need to support our “non-market” housing providers
• Hearing how federal and provincial policies and funding will impact our rural municipalities; learning about progress in various rural municipalities.

Guest Speakers

• Victor Beausoleil is the founder and Executive Director of SETSI – The Social Economy Through Social Inclusion. He has held many roles in the nonprofit sector including Toronto Community Benefits Network, CCEDnet – The Canadian Community Economic Development Network. He has recently conducted a series of fireside chats with leaders in the emerging social finance. Victor helped us to focus on the idea of
  stewardship in building community.
• Julia Grady (she/her) is the founder of 10C Shared Space, a game changing non-profit community hub in Guelph, Ontario focused on placemaking, food, learning, and entrepreneurship launched with a $2.5 M community bond raise Her journey has made her a leader in the Canadian emergence of community financing, and she has recently completed the Oxford Säid Impact Finance Innovations Program. Julia helped us to see the financial leveraging possibilities of a community organization.

Dynamic Discussion from a Community Perspective

In addition to guest presenters, the following community speakers shared their perspectives.

• Stuart Reid, Community Foundation Grey-Bruce- highlighted the role of non-profits, charities and the Community Development Organizations in addressing the creation of affordable housing.
• Jeff Brown, Meridian Credit Union– spoke to the obstacles faced by traditional financing institutions regarding financing affordable housing.

Key Takeaways

1. Collaboration is Critical: Multi-sector partnerships and regional collaboration are the way forward to achieve solutions at scale.
2. Innovation Matters: Mechanisms like land trusts, community bonds, municipal development incentives are emerging to offer new opportunities to unlock our affordable housing potential.
3. Data-Driven Action: Access to robust data and planning tools are critical to matching municipal housing development decisions to community affordability requirements.

View Intro Presentation

View Stuart’s Presentation

Next Steps

The Institute’s Social Finance and Affordable Housing Group is committed to building out The Whole Community Approach by bringing the community together to “roll up our sleeves” in 2026 by creating the required organizations and providing more events and opportunities for the community to understand and participate in community wealth building for affordable housing.

Thank you to all attendees, speakers, and contributors for making this event a success. 

Leveraging community wealth increases our region’s potential to deliver affordable housing. Without housing that workers can afford, workers cannot afford to live where they work, and business doesn’t thrive impacting the whole community.

We believe that Southern Georgian Bay can meet today’s needs of the planet, its people, and economic vitality…without compromising the needs of future generations.

Please subscribe to the Institute’s newsletter, stay connected, and receive updates on events and collaborative projects by TISGB.