Canada and FCM Announce Support for Energy Efficient Affordable Housing

Ottawa, November 30, 2021 – Investing in communities is vital to achieving Canada’s goals—creating jobs, meeting our environmental objectives, and building affordable and liveable communities for residents. That is why the Government of Canada and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) are investing in communities to provide sustainable and affordable housing for residents.

With aging housing stock, rising energy costs and increasing demand for affordable housing, municipalities and affordable housing providers face important challenges. FCM’s Sustainable Affordable Housing (SAH) initiative, created in partnership with the Government of Canada, helps housing providers retrofit existing units for higher energy performance or build new affordable housing to net-zero standards, lowering greenhouse gas emissions and supporting municipalities in achieving their broader climate change plan objectives.

The SAH initiative is investing $1,701,030 in 16 plans, studies and pilot projects to support the building or retrofitting of 16,753 units in communities across Canada.

• In Vancouver, British Columbia, the Brightside Community Homes Foundation receives $175,000 to validate targeted energy use in the redevelopment of a site to a more accessible multi-unit residential building that will mostly serve seniors. Also in Vancouver, the Unity Center of Practical Christianity receives a $25,000 planning grant to identify opportunities to redevelop an existing site into affordable rental units for the broader community.
• The Denman Housing Association in the Comox Valley Regional District receives $25,000 to develop a plan for energy efficient affordable housing on Denman Island, British Columbia.
• The Cariboo Park Home Society receives $15,860 for a plan for net-zero energy ready affordable seniors housing in Williams Lake, British Columbia.
• Springfield Heritage Housing Inc. receives $25,000 for a plan targeting energy efficiency in a 54-unit affordable housing new construction in Dugald, Manitoba.
• Affirmative Ventures Association receives $25,000 to develop a comprehensive energy plan for its proposed new six-storey, mixed-use building with 45 affordable housing units in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.
• Jean Tweed Treatment Centre (Palmerston House) in the City of Toronto receives $77,870 to review retrofit and new-build possibilities to expand and improve its housing portfolio to 15 units.
• The Regional Municipality of Peel in Ontario receives $175,000 to study the feasibility of a zero-carbon retrofit of an affordable housing multi-residential facility in Peel – Weavers Hill.
• Toronto Community Housing Corporation receives two grants of $128,800 each for energy audits towards a portfolio-wide upgrade of its aging buildings.
• Wellesley Central Residence Inc. receives $25,000 for a plan to retrofit a 100% rent-geared-to-income 112 unit building in Toronto, Ontario.
• Birch Housing, in Toronto, Newmarket, Oshawa and London, Ontario, receives $25,000 for a portfolio-wide utility analysis and benchmarking study and stakeholder engagement.
• The King’s Daughters and Sons Apartments Incorporated receives $24,000 for deep energy retrofit plan in the City of Ottawa, Ontario.
• Raising the Roof Chez Toit receives $175,000 for a feasibility study to identify the Passive House Institute EnergyPHit or Low Energy Building Program requirements for a 40-unit building retrofit in the City of Orillia, Ontario.
• In Kingston, Ontario, the Kingston Co-operative Homes Inc. receives $150,700 to study the feasibility of implementing net-zero ready energy conservation measures.
• The Fiducie foncière communautaire Québec receives $500,000 to pilot energy efficiency measures at the Dorimène Cooperative in the City of Québec, Quebec. In addition to using more conventional measures, they will recover heat from an on-site urban farm, store it in geothermal wells and use phytoremediation to improve air quality.

The Government of Canada endowed the $300-million Sustainable Affordable Housing initiative as part of a $950-million expansion of FCM’s Green Municipal Fund (GMF) in Budget 2019. The SAH initiative assists municipal providers, not-for-profit organizations, or housing cooperatives with grants, loans, and capacity-building resources to support ambitious energy-efficiency standards in the construction and retrofitting of affordable housing. In its first year of funding, in 2020-2021, the SAH initiative approved funding for 33 projects, representing more than 3,000 units.