NHA Awards Funding to Eight New Projects Researching Community-led Housing Alternatives

NHA is excited to announce that we have awarded our first annual round of research funding to eight important new projects!

These projects will be conducted by and about our partner organizations, researching their efforts to protect and expand access to affordable housing.

NHA recognizes the urgent need to scale up solutions to Canada’s inequitable, profit-oriented housing system. These eight, 1-2 year research projects will provide our partners an opportunity to reflect on and compare their evolving strategies for building transformative alternatives.

This year’s funded projects:

• ACORN Ontario
  Tenant Actions in Ontario: Documenting key learnings from ACORN leaders and organizers to build a stronger tenants union
  Co-led by Ashley Reyns (ACORN) and Alan Walks (University of Toronto)
• Architecture Sans Frontières & Montreal Autonomous Tenants Union (MATU)
  Unhoused Solidarity in Public Space
  Co-led by Zak Dawson (SLAM-MATU) and Anna Kramer (McGill University)
• Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA)
  The Role of the Canadian State in Housing Policy
  Co-led by Ricardo Tranjan (CCPA) and Sean Grisdale (University of Toronto)
• Downtown Eastside Community Land Trust Association (DTES CLT)
  Decolonizing Housing through the CLT Model
  Co-led by Norm Leech, Alie Lynch, Andy Bond, Chris Livingstone, Kathy Shimizu, and Kuni Kamizaki (University of British Columbia)
• Kensington Market Community Land Trust (KMCLT)
  Grassroots and Growing: Tracking the Past and Future of the KMCLT
  Co-led by Dominique Russell (KMCLT) and Susannah Bunce (University of Toronto)
• Parkdale Activity and Recreation Centre (PARC)
  Defining and Creating Supportive Housing: What Works and What Doesn’t?
  Co-led by Victor Willis and Oona Padgham (PARC) with Alex Flynn, Alina McKay, Donna Baines, and Penny Gurstein (University of British Columbia)
• Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust (PNLT)
  Assessing the Potential of Unlocking and Re-deploying Equity Retained in Community-Owned Lands to Support Growth of Affordable Housing
  Co-led by Joshua Barndt (PNLT) and Kuni Kamizaki (University of British Columbia)
• Toronto Chinatown Land Trust (TCLT)
  CLTs and Indigenous-Led Projects: A One-Day Knowledge Exchange Workshop
  Co-led by Chiyi Tam (TCLT), Heather Dorries (University of Toronto), and Maggie Low (University of British Columbia)

Building knowledge and collaboration

Some of these projects provide a vital opportunity to reflect on organizational progress and an opportunity to grow institutional knowledge. Other projects offer the opportunity to convene forward-looking workshops and discussions, bringing together community organizations and academics to compare and underline principles and overarching theories of change.

We anticipate that these projects will foster long-lasting collaborations within and between housing movements and housing academics. Taken together, we expect them to produce a deep well of practical advice, one from which practitioners will be able to draw inspiration and researchers will be able to draw evidence to advance academic and policy debates.

Looking ahead

Over the coming years, NHA is excited to award further annual rounds of funding for many more projects like these. As this first round of research projects is completed over the course of 2026, we look forward to sharing their findings and policy implications.

Additionally, stay tuned for NHA’s new podcast series, co-created by Ren Thomas (Dalhousie University) and Cherise Burda. The series will begin releasing episodes monthly this fall, featuring discussions with our partners on topics such as the crisis of renting in Canada, and how evolving definitions of affordable housing have shaped Canadian housing policy over time.

Finally, NHA is also excited to launch our monthly series of public panels with “Towards a New Commons”, featuring Chiyi Tam (Chinatown CLT), Jessica Upton (Parkdale Encampment Support Network), and Courtney Lockhart (Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada). It will take place Friday Oct. 17, 7-9pm at the University of Toronto (Room KP 208, Multifaith Centre, 569 Spadina Crescent). Stay tuned for a detailed announcement and registration link. Moving forward, these monthly panels will be hosted online as public webinars.

For updates on these, and other multi-year research projects led by NHA’s four Research Clusters, be sure to subscribe to our blog and follow our social media accounts: Bluesky, Instagram, and LinkedIn. You can also contact us at: newhousingalternatives.research@utoronto.ca.