National Housing Strategy Demonstrations Initiative

Access funding to demonstrate innovative practices, technologies, programs, policies and strategies.

IMPORTANT
Please note that the NHS Demonstrations Initiative intake portal is closed until further notice. Explore other funding options here.

What is the National Housing Strategy Demonstrations Initiative?

The National Housing Strategy Demonstrations Initiative funds the demonstration of solutions that support housing affordability in real environments. Solutions support National Housing Supply priority areas and groups and outcomes, focusing on solutions with evidence of positive impact. The initiative intends to increase adoption of high-quality solutions for greater sector impact, Demonstrations support active scaling/replication with solutions adopters.

Am I eligible?

To be eligible, applicants must be organizations meeting the following criteria:

Organizations duly incorporated as legal entities in Canada and validly existing in Canada before receiving funding. This requirement can be completed after submitting the application but must be completed before any funding is received.
Organizations in good standing with CMHC and not in breach of any terms and conditions under any previous project with the Demonstrations Initiative or other CMHC program. Applicants in breach of any terms and conditions or who fail to meet integrity requirements may be denied funding on that basis.

Note
Employees of CMHC and anyone connected with the evaluation of the applications for the National Housing Strategy Demonstrations Initiative are prohibited from participating. This includes entering as an applicant, being a member of an applicant’s team or as a collaborator.

You can participate in the Demonstrations Initiative if you are part of a broad range of housing stakeholders (as applicants or partners), such as, but not limited to:

community housing providers, affordable housing providers, non-profit affordable housing organizations and affordable housing cooperatives
government agencies and corporations – provincial, territorial and municipal
Indigenous organizations – First Nation, Inuit and Métis
Canadian companies organizations and associations
private and non-profit builders and developers and real estate agencies
associations, networks or non-governmental organizations (NGOs) seeking to demonstrate and scale new and innovative approaches
agencies, associations and NGOs involved in National Housing Straregy priority area activities, including:
- seniors associations
- veterans associations
- mental health advocates
- homelessness hub
- non-profit organizations
- sustainability agencies
academic institutions and innovation hubs involved in National Housing Strategy priority area activities and audiences
end users, people with lived experience that can provide first-hand expertise to the demonstration, adaptation or replication of the solution.

Note
International organizations and individuals may be collaborators or members of the demonstration team but not the applicant. They must partner as collaborators with a Canadian applicant.

Note
Eligible applicants must indicate any relevant project funding that they have applied to, been approved for or have received. Also, please indicate collaborators’ funding and include funding from other Strategy initiatives. For example: the Affordable Housing Fund – new construction, Affordable Housing Fund – repair and renewal and the Apartment or the Construction Loan Program.

Eligible activities include:

developing new information, evidence and data related to the demonstrated solutions
engaging in collaborative work with an expanded group of stakeholders to support greater adoption or scaling
disseminating information and knowledge and transferring capacity and expertise related to community housing providers solutions
developing adapted scaling approaches to expand impact of solutions meeting the specific needs of the Community Housing sector
mobilizing stakeholders for scaling such solutions

Examples of funded activities include:

Highlighting high-impact innovations already implemented in a real-world setting, to support greater sector awareness and appetite for adoption.
Documenting its performance and benefits based on evidence, including outcomes for its expected users and adopters and National Housing Strategy outcomes. The goal is to increase interest in replicating or adopting the demonstrated solution.
Showing potential adopters and replicators how to implement the innovation in various contexts through:
- tools development
- knowledge transfer
- capacity-building
- development and implementation of scaling models and approaches
- adaptation and replication processes
- collaborative approaches
- partnerships/value networks development, networking and showcasing stakeholder engagement across diverse geographic, social, cultural, economic or regulatory areas and sustainable solutions.

SELECTION PROCESS

Eligibility screening

All complete applications will first be processed by CMHC for eligibility and integrity screening. CMHC will only contact you to tell you if your application is ineligible to move to the evaluation committee.

Evaluation

CMHC’s evaluation process is supported by internal and/or external reviewers with relevant experience and subject-matter expertise and/or people with lived experience, who will assess the quality of the applications by reviewing and scoring them. Only applications scored at 80% or higher by reviewers will be considered for funding.
Evaluation criteria include:
- innovation details
- readiness and sustainability
- sector appetite
- stakeholders’ engagement in demonstrations activities
- affordable housing sector impacts
- innovation in relation with housing units
- project objective
- statement of work (SOW) and knowledge mobilization (KM) plan
- partners
- team members
- project costs and funding contributions
- bonus: National Housing Strategy priority groups
- risk assessment and mitigation

Prioritization

For proposals reaching the minimum 80% threshold, CMHC will prioritize the following:

Solutions that focus on meeting the specific needs of one or more of the National Housing Strategy priority groups.
For solutions focusing on Indigenous housing or Indigenous populations, projects will be led by an Indigenous organizations or group or they should have a substantial role in the demonstration project.

CMHC also aims to ensure a diversified portfolio of solutions for the community housing provider sector. Therefore, we may consider additional prioritization criteria among proposals that reach the minimum 80% threshold, such as, but not limited to:

diversity of funding recipients
diversity of National Housing Strategy priority population groups
diversity in geographic/regulatory representation (to see how solutions might require adaptation in different contexts)
diversity across types of solutions where limited demonstrations have taken place

The Demonstrations Initiative follows a continuous intake process. This means that additional prioritization criteria may be applied over time, such as alignment with emerging federal housing priorities. If new criteria are introduced:

The prioritization criteria will be updated on this web page.
Any new prioritization criteria would only apply to applications submitted after the updated criteria, to ensure fairness.

Application Resources

Successful projects

2024-25 Successful Projects

Affordable360: Faster, Easier Affordable Housing Development
Affordable360 (A360) is a program that helps speed up the process of developing affordable housing. It offers online tools that make it easier for non-profit housing providers to plan and prepare for construction. A360 connects experts like urban planners and cost estimators with rural, small and Indigenous communities in Alberta, Nova Scotia and Ontario that need support.

A Systemic Approach to Supporting Community Housing Providers
This project will document the method used to build the YW Kitchener-Waterloo Supportive Residence; a 41-unit affordable housing building made with prefabricated construction. Completed in 12 months, the building offers rapid housing for women and children fleeing domestic violence. By recording this successful approach, the project creates a clear roadmap for housing providers across Canada with the potential to create 1,148 additional units at 28 YWCA locations over the next 1-3 years. This demonstration shows how to use prefabrication to scale affordable housing, build capacity, attract private capital, and foster partnerships with nonprofits, housing co-ops, and governments.

Benevolent Society Partnership: Unlocking Community Land for Affordable Housing
This initiative presents a flexible model designed to increase the supply of affordable housing in the community housing sector. The project’s ground lease model allows a non-profit housing provider to lease land from a benevolent society at below-market rates, making affordable housing more financially viable while ensuring the land remains in community ownership. The revenue model integrates residential, cultural and commercial spaces, using retail rental income to support long-term affordability. This innovative solution has the potential to be widely adopted across Canada.

Canadian Housing Affordability Partnership: Affordable Housing in Transit Areas
The Canadian Housing Affordability Partnership (CHAP) is raising awareness in the housing sector about the challenges of transit-oriented development (TOD) and sharing best practices for creating affordable housing in transit areas. By building local partnerships between municipal stakeholders, community housing developers, and philanthropic organizations to plan and deliver inclusive, equitable TOD projects and using social finance tools, including a blended capital revolving fund, CHAP aims to create affordable housing through transit-oriented developments.

Deep Retrofit Lessons for Affordable Housing in British Columbia
This project will document and share lessons from 6 deep retrofit projects in British Columbia that serve people in poverty or housing need. It will record decision-making, designs and costs while identifying obstacles and factors that help deep retrofits succeed. The findings will be shared locally and nationally. The goal is to expand innovative retrofit methods that not only save energy but also protect vulnerable residents and keep multi-unit buildings affordable. This approach can be scaled up to benefit many more communities.

Good Neighbour Network: Affordable Homes for Aging Seniors
This project creates affordable and accessible housing, offering seniors a supportive living environment with a focus on home care and social engagement. The housing includes mixed-use spaces for services and activities that benefit both residents and the local community. The Good Neighbour Network addresses the growing need for affordable senior housing in Quebec, especially for the middle class as the population ages. The first non-profit community housing organization for seniors (55+) plans to expand through partnerships with local groups. 

Mapping Public Lands for Affordable Housing
This project creates a map of public lands in British Columbia, covering priority areas including Northern and Indigenous communities. The map identifies vacant, well-located public lands by scoring properties based on their closeness to key amenities like transit, healthcare and education. This helps governments, housing providers and non-profits plan new projects without overloading existing infrastructure. The map also allows users to add extra data layers such as heritage sites or environmentally sensitive areas. A partnership with the Aboriginal Housing Management Association will further refine the analysis to support viable non-profit housing projects.

Multi-Unit Real Estate Partnerships for Impact
This project will document, share and support new models for affordable housing partnerships. It focuses on building effective collaborations among non-profit housing providers, community groups and private residential developers. These proven models can be adapted to different settings. The goal is to promote sustainable practices that meet the growing need for affordable housing while using available resources wisely. By spreading these best practices, the project can help increase affordable housing options across Quebec.

Protecting Affordable Rentals: The LEMR Community Housing Acquisition Tool 
The Low-End of Market Rental (LEMR) Community Housing Acquisition Tool aims to protect and expand Canada’s affordable housing stock by helping governments, non-profits and co-ops identify existing low-cost rental properties for acquisition. Building on the LEMR Housing Monitor, developed by the Canadian Centre for Housing Rights, this project will enhance data tools to map at-risk housing and identify properties suitable for non-profit acquisition. It will also support sector-wide collaboration by documenting best practices for acquisitions programs. By strengthening the ability to acquire and protect affordable housing, this initiative helps prevent displacement, ensures long-term affordability and supports Canada’s growing network of non-profit and co-operative housing providers.

Toboggan Living: Turning Empty Offices into Affordable Homes
Toboggan Living has developed a powerful planning tool that can transform vacant office spaces into affordable co-living housing, helping to address Canada’s housing shortage. Converting offices into co-living spaces can reduce costs, speed up constructions and minimize environmental impact by reusing existing building systems. This tool has the potential to support the creation of much-needed units by making office-to-co-living conversions faster, cheaper and more efficient.  

2021 Successful Projects

Calgary Urban Indigenous Community Land Trust Development Project
The goal of this project is to develop a localized urban Indigenous Community Land Trust model, informed by Indigenous Elders and urban Indigenous community stakeholders in collaboration with the existing local Community Land Trust (HomeSpace). This model will help address the limited culturally relevant affordable housing options for urban Indigenous peoples in and around Calgary.

Canadian Network of Community Land Trust’s Technical Assistance Program
The Technical Assistance Program aims to support the healthy growth and increased impacts of the Community Land Trust sector through the documentation and dissemination of best practices. The objective is to grow, amplify, and consolidate the effectiveness and ongoing collaboration of CLTs across the country.

Creating a revolving loan fund to scale up the Ottawa Community Land Trust
This project seeks to create a revolving investment fund to facilitate the strategic acquisition of existing properties. A revolving investment fund will enable non-profit purchase and help to expand the scale and strengthen community non-profit ownership in Canada’s housing system.

DTES Community Land Trust
This demonstration aims to establish a decolonized governance model for Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside Community Land Trust, focusing on tenants and community members with lived experience and on a holistic housing model for CLT properties. If successful, this model focused on people living in deep poverty, will be shared for replication in similar communities across Canada.

Land trust for an affordable cohousing project in Lachine
The purpose of this pilot project is to establish a land trust to develop affordable, long-term cohousing arrangements. This trust will be used to acquire other lots to develop affordable cohousing and replicate this financial model for development elsewhere in Quebec.

Social utility trust: Model deployment and consolidation
This demonstration seeks to address the current lack of information on social utility trusts by creating adapted transfer tools and allowing their dissemination and appropriation by affordable housing stakeholders in Quebec. This will help establish social utility trusts to protect land and buildings from rising values and real estate speculation.

Foncier solidaire Brome-Missisquoi: A perpetually affordable, green and quality building stock
The project consists in testing a community land trust project through emphyteutic leases on the territory of the Brome-Missisquoi RCM. Depending on the results achieved, it will be possible to consider an eventual scaling up throughout the Brome-Missisquoi RCM and across Quebec.

G.R.E.A.T. Housing (Green Rural Environmental Affordable Together)
This project seeks to foster and demonstrate the process of implementing an environmentally sustainable affordable housing Community Land Trust in the context of the current housing market and climate change challenges. The expected impact and outcomes from piloting this model include testing, documenting and building new evidence for this type of solution, leading to the creation of eco affordable housing in Muskoka.

Growing Local Land Trusts through Platform Co-operatives in the Short-term Rental Market
That project aims to demonstrate an innovative way for land trusts to develop a sustainable revenue stream that can help accelerate and scale up their efforts to protect and expand affordable housing. The initiative will focus on Toronto’s Kensington Market, with the goal of creating a funding model that can be replicated by other Toronto land trusts and in major urban and tourist markets across Canada.

Halifax Affordable Housing Community Land Trust
This initiative seeks to demonstrate how a municipal-scale Community Land Trust can address systemic housing challenges in Halifax. This model would be based on leading practices and adapted to Halifax’s context. This project also wants to stimulate new ways of thinking about housing and a deeper public conversation about the significance of resilient and whole communities as they relate to health, equity, and opportunity.

Journey to a York Region Community Housing Land Trust
This project aims to demonstrate the process of implementing an existing community land trust solution, in operation in Toronto, in the region of York in Ontario. This demonstration seeks to share valuable lessons learned and to build new evidence on early outcomes in a complex environment.

Kamloops Community Land Trust (CLT) Creation for Affordable Housing
This initiative intends to demonstrate the process of implementing a Community Land Trust with non-traditional partners. The processes and governance structures identified through this project will be used as a toolkit or best practices guide that other communities can use as a resource. The outcome will identify common barriers or challenges and identify strategies for overcoming these issues with non-traditional partners.

Kensington Market Community Land Trust
This dissemination project will demonstrate on a national stage how was achieved the Kensington Market Community Land Trust first successful acquisition in June of 2021. In addition to fully evaluating and analyzing the contextual factors which led to this successful acquisition, the project will undertake a knowledge transfer to the neighboring Chinatown context to support scaling and adaptation. This demonstration will enable to leverage the momentum of this recent success to practically benefit the emergent interest in Community Land Trusts across Canada.

Temiskaming District Community Land Trust
The objective of this demonstration is to experiment the development of an Indigenous women-led land trust within the District of Temiskaming and District of Cochrane in Ontario that will support and enable women-led housing co-ops and women-built affordable housing. Through this initiative, a roadmap and framework can be created for Indigenous governed land trusts to be scaled across Canada.

Scaling the community-based CLT through diversified land securement strategies and multi-sectoral partnerships
The Neighbourhood Land Trust is Ontario's first community-based Community Land Trust. This organization has achieved success in producing and preserving affordable housing in Toronto's west-end downtown. The objective of this demonstration to scale the proven community-based CLT model in order to develop a sustainable CLT model of land acquisition, development, management and operation for long-term affordable housing.

Whitehorse Community Land Trust (Directed Demo)
Affordable housing challenges are accentuated in the North, where the market is defined by high housing costs, near-zero vacancy rates and limited housing stock. This project aims to create the first Community Land Trust built in Northern Canada and first community-owned non-profit housing projects in Whitehorse with built-in price protection.

2020 Successful Projects

Hey Neighbour Collective: Social Sustainability Innovations for Affordable Multi-Unit Rental Housing
This project will generate evidence-based data about diverse and innovative approaches for the community and private housing sectors. The goal is to increase their capacity to manage and create socially sustainable and resilient housing for Canadians living in multi-unit contexts.

SAFERhome Universal Design Affordable Housing Demonstration
This project will outline, demonstrate and establish new best practices for building affordable, accessible and environmentally conscious housing. It will focus on tangible aging in place solutions, adaptive, intuitive and affordable housing, combined with new and emerging technologies.

Scalable, Sustainable Companion Housing Model for Vulnerable Populations
Happipad is a web-based platform enabling peer-to-peer formation of companion housing arrangements. This project will expand the impact of Happipad’s technology by demonstrating a scalable, sustainable model to deliver affordable housing opportunities targeting vulnerable populations.

Automatic Fire Suppression System Demonstration to Protect Homes in Indigenous Communities
The Guardian Fire Shield protection is an automatic, affordable, post-construction fire suppression system. The demonstration site will seek to inspire other Indigenous communities, Fire Chiefs and local governments through their inspection of how easily the system can be installed into current dwellings with or without sprinkler systems.

The Vienna House Multi-Unit Affordable Housing Demonstration Initiative
The Vienna House will showcase: prefabrication, low-carbon emissions design, building information modeling, integrated design and collaboration and knowledge mobilization.

A Toolkit for Affordability Driven Home Energy Efficiency Retrofits Through Local Improvement Charge Programs
This project will demonstrate and develop innovative packaged energy efficiency and health and safety measures to support seniors aging in place. This includes heat pumps combined with solar photovoltaic panels to provide low-cost cooling.

Implementing the Right to Housing in the Supportive Housing Sector
This project seeks to enhance the capacity of renters to navigate rental housing laws and systems for more stable and successful tenancies. Within the supportive housing and service provider sector, it will seek to increase legal competency, awareness, leadership and accountability around accessibility and equity issues.

The Shift: Supporting Human-Rights Based Housing Strategies (Directed Demo)
This project aims to equip cities with knowledge and tools (case studies, toolkits, consultation frameworks) required to apply a human rights-based lens to housing strategies. The outcomes, feedback and lessons learned will bring new insights that will strengthen these strategies.

Collaborative Innovative Partnerships for Financing Affordable Housing (Directed Demo)
This project aims to demonstrate a more effective means for non-profit housing providers to fundraise the equity necessary to advance their projects, while engaging the private sector and broader community to make affordable housing everyone’s concern. By providing tools, templates and guides, the goal is to accelerate the replication of a fundraising approach.

Regent Park: World Urban Pavilion (Directed Demo)
The Pavilion will be a physical and virtual knowledge exchange hub in support of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the New Urban Agenda. It will showcase and facilitate sharing science, research and innovation in urban revitalization. There will be an emphasis on housing and housing affordability, including the lived experiences of NHS vulnerable populations.

Evergreen: Future Cities Canada: Unexpected Solutions (Directed Demo - Completed)
A virtual demonstration platform that showcased housing innovations and connected the people behind them; providing the opportunity to increase awareness and the capacity needed to scale innovative solutions across the housing and urban innovation.

2019 Successful Projects

Kijaté: An Innovative Urban Aboriginal Social Housing Solution
This project will demonstrate an Aboriginal social housing project providing access to affordable, adequate and stable housing.

My Home My Community: Pathways to Homeownership National Demonstration Initiative
This project seeks to improve housing stability, affordability and choice for people with developmental disabilities.

Promoting affordability and social wellbeing: implementing design and social programming in multi-unit housing
This project aims to demonstrate and share the social and affordable benefits of thoughtful design and social programming.

ARDN Step-By-Step Guide to Developing Affordable Housing
The step-by-step guide highlights best practices in planning, developing and operating affordable rental housing.

2018 Successful Projects

Accelerating Deep Energy Retrofits across Multi-residential Buildings
Demonstrating cold climate air-source heat pumps (CC-ASHPs) as energy efficiency retrofit solutions for electrically heated Multi-Residential Buildings.

A winning revitalization approach
Discover the San Romanoway Revival project, a successful approach to revitalizing aging affordable housing developments.

From Emergency Shelter to Affordable Housing with Support
Showcasing how emergency shelters can successfully transition to providing affordable housing with support functions.

Modular Construction for Sustainable and Affordable Community Housing
Exploring the potential of an emerging and increasingly used strategy for designing and constructing high-performance buildings in reduced timeframes.

My Home, My Community: Pathways to inclusive affordable housing
Enabling the inclusion of people living with developmental disabilities in communities.

Smart Homes: supporting community integration
Evaluating Smart Homes’ potential for supporting independent living for people living with mental illness

Innovative approach to supportive housing
Discovering Indwell’s integrated approach: Passive House performance levels, community financing programs, community participation strategies and supportive services.

Affordable housing options to prevent youth homelessness
Exploring the Reside program, the proposed solution to help prevent youth homelessness.

Transformation towards Universal Design
Meeting changing needs for seniors and people living with disabilities.

Still have questions about the National Housing Strategy Demonstrations Initiative or need technical support?

1-800-668-2642

Innovation-Research@cmhc-schl.gc.ca

Was this page relevant to your needs?

Discover related content using the tags below:

Date Published: March 5, 2025

National Housing Strategy Demonstrations Initiative