The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) is in talks with the County’s Affordable Housing Corporation, which is concerned the County is being underserved by the agency’s funding rubrics.

Anny Le, Senior Manager of Client Relations and Multi-Unit Housing at CMHC, joined the Affordable Housing board last week to give a presentation on CMHC’s programs — and the scoring criteria for applications to its funds. 

The visit was a response to ongoing correspondence between the Affordable Housing Corp and CMHC over discrepancies between the data it uses to evaluate funding applications for rental apartments, and the County’s data.

CMHC uses data from Statistics Canada supplemented with its own data set on rents, vacancy rates, expenses, market trends, and surveys. 

The problem is the CMHC’s numbers don’t mesh with the rental market data the municipality has been tracking since 2020. CMHC data shows the median cost of a two-bedroom apartment in the County is $1,294 a month, while the County’s says it is $2,000. 

“There is an obvious data gap,” Ms. Le conceded. 

“This is why we’re having this conversation,” Councillor Kate MacNaughton noted. “The data points do not reflect reality.”

“We have a hidden community of renters who are severely disadvantaged because there are no units,” she said, adding that many people who work in the County have been priced out.

Adam Goheen, Interim CAO and Director of Housing, also noted that the municipality is struggling to find the resources to meet the application requirements. While seed funding from CMCH covers basic architectural designs, the County does not have the money to commission detailed designs for the Disraeli Street development without a guarantee of future funding. 

“We’re running up against significant challenges,” he said. “Frankly, we just need money.”

Ms. Le offered two clarifications to help advance the County’s applications. She confirmed that CMHC will accept municipal housing data as long as it comes with a letter of approval from the municipality. 

She also encouraged those writing the applications to sit down with CMHC staff to go over every line. Ms. Le said she would welcome a meeting with Mr. Goheen and Affordable Housing Supervisor Elis Ziegler to look over where the gaps might be. 

“We want more rural projects,” she assured the board. “We have a target for more rural projects to be funded.”

A National Housing Strategy

Council carried a resolution from Councillor Phil St-Jean, chair of PECAHC, on March 11th to invite a representative from CMHC to give a presentation addressing the County’s concerns with their data collection and scoring criteria.

CMHC programs are part of the federal government’s National Housing Strategy, a ten-year plan launched in 2018, with over $115 billion pledged to build housing across Canada. 

Its flagship program, the Affordable Housing Fund, was updated in November 2024 to include two sub-streams. 

The Community Housing Stream provides funding in the form of repayable and forgivable loans for projects where 30 percent of the units are rented at less than 80 percent of market rent. 

The Rapid Housing Stream has the same minimum requirements for affordability, but is intended to provide housing for vulnerable populations, such as transitional or supportive housing. Funding under this stream can cover up to 100 percent of costs. 

Ms. Le also walked board members through CMHC’s Apartment Loan Construction program. The intent of the program is to “provide low cost loans to build rental projects across Canada,” Ms. Le said. 

A minimum of 20 percent of the units funded through this program have to be rented at 30 percent of the median household income in the subject market. 

Applications are evaluated on a scoring system that look at social outcomes, accessibility, and energy efficiency as a baseline. To further prioritize projects they look into whether vulnerable populations will be served and potential to partner with non-profit organizations. 

“We have the unfortunate problem of having to prioritize,” Ms. Le said.

She noted that the overall question being asked is “Is this the best project in this specific neighbourhood?” 

Analyzing this question hasn’t proven to be as simple as it appears and is the basis of PECAHC’s frustration with the application process.