Darren Peck
Preamble
This blog post provides an overview of research conducted by Darren Peck as part of a research assistantship under Dr. Alan Walks. The project examines federal funding disbursements through the Rapid Housing Initiative (2020–2025), linking them to social housing developments across Canada. Darren currently works with the Canadian Centre for Housing Rights.
Table of Contents
Program Background
The Rapid Housing initiative (RHI) was created by the Canadian federal government in 2020 within its National Housing Strategy (NHS) as a way of getting affordable housing built quickly. From 2020 to 2025, the RHI funded the construction of over 12,000 affordable housing units spread across 621 separate projects (HICC, 2024).
The RHI was initially intended to be limited to $1.5 billion. But after a series of successes, and after reportedly beating targets for building new social housing, the federal government renewed funding for the RHI two more times, before rolling it into the Affordable Housing Fund in 2025 (CMHC, 2022, 2024). Unlike the Affordable Housing Fund (then known as the National Housing Co-Investment Fund), which committed funding at a 75:25 loan-to-grant ratio, the RHI was a grant-only program. It provided higher contributions per unit than any other NHS program to providers willing to complete projects within one year and target housing to those at risk of homelessness (CMHC, 2023; HICC, 2024). As such, many RHI projects were supportive housing developments.
Data Gaps and Limitations
The RHI is seen as a successful example of good housing policy (Blueprint ADE, 2022). However, the ability to study its relative success has been hampered by insufficient access to comprehensive data on RHI projects. Housing providers have said that they would love to know what other organizations have received RHI funding, to compare notes and develop more efficient ways of employing RHI (and related) funds in future. While CMHC publishes data on their funding commitments, the number of units funded, and the name of the project, often the name of the organization(s) that received the funding is missing, as well as the type of housing and the street address of the project. Sometimes an incorrect municipality is listed in the CMHC documents, and when locational coordinates are given often, they are mapped to the geographic centre of a region or municipality, rather than providing an accurate location of the project. For these reasons, it is extremely difficult for housing providers, or anyone for that matter, to gain a comprehensive understanding of which organizations across Canada have received RHI funding using the data in the CMHC project records.
Methodology
Having a list of all of the organizations that have received RHI funding is useful not only for non-profit housing providers but for any researcher who wants to evaluate the RHI program and its impacts. To address this need for accurate data, I have created a dataset of all the organizations in Canada that have received RHI funding. I began this process by conducting internet searches of project names and coordinates, and triangulating the existing CMHC records with CMHC press releases. More often than not, the press releases would include the name of the recipient, as well as information that could be integrated into the dataset and/or which helped with further searches.
The ease of finding information about recipients varied greatly. Some projects had changed names since receiving the funding, while others had revised unit numbers, and many of the CMHC records had inaccurate location data. Nonetheless, I was able to match every organization to a CMHC record entry in the end. Inaccurate data could be sorted out using a process of elimination in many cases. For example, if 5 organizations within a municipality received funding and 4 could be located, the fifth could generally be matched to some piece of information included in CMHC records.
Findings and Dataset
I was able to ascertain the recipient organizations of 619 of the 621 RHI funding commitments. Only two records are recorded here without a strong match; in these cases, I have identified the most likely recipients based on the information available. The resulting dataset – listing the name, address, funding commitment, organization, and street address has been made available for researchers or housing providers who may find good use of it. In future, should a researcher or organization want to collaborate with another on RHI projects, share experiences, or investigate any aspects of the RHI from 2020-25, they can use this list. The RHI has been one of the most effective programs for the creation of new supportive housing stock for the past 30 years. Learning from the organizations that have utilized RHI funding can allow those within the housing sector to better understand the successes and failings of the RHI and help guide better supportive housing programs in future.
NHA partners can access the dataset here.1
References
Blueprint ADE. (2022). Implementation of the Rapid Housing Initiative.
CMHC. (2022, October 10). Rapid Housing Initiative Updates. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. https://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/professionals/project-funding-and-mortgage-financing/funding-programs/all-funding-programs/rapid-housing/rapid-housing-updates
CMHC. (2023, April 4). Housing Programs and Initiatives. National Housing Strategy.
CMHC. (2024, November 12). Affordable Housing Fund: New Construction – Community Housing Sub-Stream. Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
HICC. (2024). Housing and Infrastructure Project Map. https://housing-infrastructure.canada.ca/gmap-gcarte/index-eng.html
Footnotes
- Though all of the information in this data set is available publicly, we have elected to limit availability to NHA members and interested parties. This is because many organizations that have received RHI funding serve vulnerable communities. If you do not have access to the password-protected section of the NHA website, please email newhousingalternatives.research@utoronto.ca. ↩︎
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