Calgary mayor announces $60M housing initiative

Groups interested in building affordable rental housing can now apply for a new program initiated by the City of Calgary.

On Thursday, the city announced it is providing $60 millionin fundingover threeyears as part of the Housing Capital Initiative (HCI).

From now until Oct. 10, the city is taking HCI applications from charities, non-profit organizations and Indigenous groups seeking help with the cost of building new properties or acquiring existing buildings.

The city would fund up to 30 per cent of the project, and Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek says she hopes the initiative will leverage other orders of government to join in and provide money for non-market housing.

"Based on experience, when a municipality believes in itself and in its people and invests in the success of those people, others follow suit," Gondek said during her announcement at City Hall.

"Today's announcement means that Calgary projects can move more quickly from ideas to becoming reality."

She also says projects that can commit to a longer affordability term, lower rents and faster deliverability timelines will be prioritized to receive funding from the HCI.

The funding also requires that projects commit to maintaining below-market rents for a minimum of 20 years

Calgary's 'Home is Here' strategy

The program is part of the city's 98-item "Home is Here" housing strategy, and Gondek says the initiative was created because city council decided it needed to do more to help get affordable housing built.

Calgary's housing strategy is based on addressing findings from its Housing Needs Assessment report released in the fall of 2023. The city reported one in five householdsstruggled to afford housing costs in 2021 which means around 84,600 households across Calgarywere spending more than 30 per cent of their total income on housing.

Gondek says the HCI is needed to address Calgary's intense population growth. She saysthe city welcomed over 200 people per day last year alone, and is projected to welcome 110,000 more newcomers over the next four years.

Amanda Szpecht, acting manager of housing solutions at the City of Calgary, says the HCI applications need to align with the city's definition of affordable housing.

"So from that perspective, we're looking at rent rates for households for applicants to come in at like $1,600 per household," said Szpecht.

She also says that because the HCI is about leveraging dollars, the city did reach out to provincial partners and other organizations to assure that this initiative could be stacked with other funding programs.

If the HCI is successful and receives a large number of applicants,it's possible there could be another round of funding in the future, the mayor says.

The city plans on hosting two information sessions one on July 30, and another on Sept. 5 for interested HCI applicants to learn more.