Affordable Housing Innovation Fund

Funding for innovative housing providers driving innovation across the housing continuum.

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Upload your documents and fill out the application in our portal to complete your application.

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The Affordable Housing Innovation Fund supports new ideas that will drive change and disrupt the industry – ideas and approaches that will evolve the affordable housing sector and create the next generation of housing in Canada.

You can get funding for your innovations to:

develop and test innovations that incorporate resource and operating efficiencies and are replicable and scalable – including financing, operating models and technologies
get flexible financial support to test a range of innovations and leverage new partnerships
facilitate partnerships and encourage participation from diverse stakeholders including private sector, not-for-profits, community housing organizations, co-operatives, municipalities, provinces, territories, Indigenous governments and organizations and social investment organizations

NEW

A portion of this fund has been set aside to help developers and providers help renters transition to homeownership. Learn more about the Rent-to-Own stream.

Eligibility requirements

Eligibility

The Innovation Fund is looking for unique ideas and approaches that will evolve and disrupt the affordable housing sector in Canada.

The Fund will provide $550.8 million over 6 years.

Eligible applicants include:

municipalities, provinces and territories
private sector developers and builders
non-profit housing providers and community housing organizations
Indigenous governments and organizations
any other housing provider interested in developing and testing innovative approaches to rent-to-own housing

Innovation Fund proposals must demonstrate how they meet the following minimum criteria to be reviewed.

Affordability:

The Innovation Fund defines affordability based on the affordability criteria of the municipality where the project is located.
Failing such municipal criteria, the provincial criteria may be used. Where no affordability criteria exist, CMHC will determine affordability for rental housing projects based on the median market rent.
You must demonstrate how your project will remain affordable for at least 10 years.

Innovation:

The use of innovative solutions for affordable housing, including novel financing models or unique designs used to overcome barriers and lower the costs and risks associated with housing projects.

For this program, we consider 3 types of innovation:

Transformational: Creates a new model that eliminates or totally transforms existing approaches.
Breakthrough: Meaningful change resulting in a demonstrably new approach that results in a substantial competitive edge.
Incremental: “New and improved” reflecting small, yet meaningful improvements in an existing approach.

Financial sustainability:

Your proposal must demonstrate that the required financial resources are available to support the sustainability of the project.

Proposals should also highlight how the innovation will reduce or eliminate reliance on government subsidies.

Knowledge transfer

As part of your application, you must provide a knowledge transfer plan and information dissemination strategy for your innovative project or idea.

Knowledge transfer objectives include:

capturing and sharing information, lessons learned and insights gained through the initiative
advancing the capabilities of the housing sector and knowledge of decision makers
informing and influencing policy makers, builders or seed the next generation of innovations to improve housing affordability

Additional objectives

You will also need to describe if and how your innovative proposal will support the following objectives:

reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions
increase the number of accessible units within the housing stock
address the needs of the National Housing Strategy in relation to focus on needs of priority areas for action

IMPORTANT

Proposals with demonstrated added value – like replicability, scalability, access to transit or serving priority populations – will score higher.

TIP! Download the required documentation checklist for more details on how to complete your application.

Proposals will be prioritized on these key elements: