National Housing Strategy innovation drive announces boost for Hamilton projects

New grant will focus on the development of new affordable housing across Hamilton

National Housing Strategy innovation drive announces boost for Hamilton projects

Federal officials have announced that Social Innovation Canada would be receiving a $400,000 investment from the National Housing Strategy’s Solutions Lab program.

With the project now dubbed as the “Hamilton Transit Oriented Affordable Housing Lab”, the grant will go towards “identifying and co-developing financing solutions to preserve existing and create new affordable housing near transit corridors in the city of Hamilton, and to inform the development of similar projects in other municipalities across Canada,” according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).

The funding will also go towards identifying “innovative and sustainable funding pathways” that can also be scaled and applied to other similar ventures.

“Projects will be selected from potential sites along current A-Line or B-Line transit that are currently held by local non-profit affordable housing providers and other sites and providers as identified,” CMHC said.

Solutions Labs will aim to address “complex societal challenges that require systems change, and which have not been solved using conventional methods,” the Crown corporation said.

“They provide a space for people with diverse perspectives to come together to question assumptions and to experiment with housing solutions,” CMHC said. “Labs fuel bottom-up collaborative innovation in search of new ways to solve complex housing problems.”