That is the number of Ontarians on the developmental disability housing waitlist alone. Almost no one is building homes for them. After 12 months of quiet work, we are officially launching the Foundation Affordable Housing Fund I to change that. Targeted returns of 6 to 20% across three investor classes, alongside permanent affordability.
PV, Mit & Jeff
The Foundation Affordable Housing Fund is the work that comes out of that sentence. Today we are officially launching it.
That sentence at the top of this email belongs to Mit. It is the sentence that keeps him up at night. Today, after 12 months of quiet work, we are officially launching the fund built around answering it.
Mit's younger brother Apiiran is 31. He has developmental and physical disabilities, is nonverbal, and needs 24/7 care. He lives at home with their mom. She is 110 lbs. He is 100 lbs. She lifts him every day. She is getting older. He is getting heavier.
At 18, SickKids' coordinated care ended for Apiiran, and the adult system handed the family a stack of waitlists. His day program alone costs $100 a day. Across Ontario, 53,000+ adults with developmental disabilities are waiting for a supportive home that may never come.
The market, on its own, will not solve this. The unit economics do not pencil at the rents these tenants can pay. So we built the structure that does. It is called the Foundation Affordable Housing Fund I LP.
The fund builds and operates affordable and supportive rental housing for four specific groups of Canadians:
Adults with developmental disabilities. The 53,000+ on Ontario's waitlist. People like Mit's brother who deserve safe, dignified, supported housing.
ODSP recipients. Adults living on the Ontario Disability Support Program, with a maximum monthly benefit that does not come close to covering market rent.
Seniors on fixed income. Canadians who worked their entire lives and now cannot afford the apartment market they helped build.
Canadians with physical disabilities. Accessible units priced at rent geared to income.
We are not in the business of running social services. NPO partners are. The fund delivers the physical building and the affordability covenant in perpetuity. Ontario non profit operators handle tenant selection, wraparound support, and the day to day care that turns housing into homes. They have the relationships, the wait list visibility, the funding mandates, and the mission. We give them a building they could not build on their own. It is the cleanest win win in this space.
Federal, provincial, and municipal programs stack together to make affordable rental pencil. We are already inside this stack on Wellington Towers and scaling it across the AHF portfolio.
Federal: CMHC MLI Select (95% LTC, 50 year amortization), Build Canada Homes, Apartment Construction Loan.
Provincial: Ontario Priorities Housing Initiative (OPHI), Canada-Ontario Community Housing Initiative (COCHI), Building Faster Fund.
Municipal (London): Affordable Housing CIP ($45K per unit forgivable plus $15K transit oriented), development charge exemption, GST/HST rebate on new purpose built rental.
Each layer turns a project that would not pencil at affordable rents into one that does. The fund's edge is that we know how to assemble all three layers on the same building.
Here is the part of the affordable housing system that almost no one talks about. CMHC affordability commitments expire after 10 to 20 years. The building gets built, rents stay affordable for one cycle, and then the covenant ends. The building goes to market rate. The vulnerable tenants get displaced. The waitlist starts over.
We refused to build a fund that does that to its own tenants. FAHF I is structured so that Foundation Capital, as General Partner, holds the affordable units permanently. Not for 10 years. Not for 20. Forever. The covenant follows title. The hold sits with us. The same tenants are not displaced when the next cycle of rates comes around.
That structural commitment, the fact that we permanently hold the affordable units, is what unlocks the rest of the model. Here is the chain reaction:
NPO partners unlock grant capital that for profit developers cannot. Federal, provincial, and municipal governments offer significant grants, contribution agreements, and funding programs that are only available to charitable and not for profit entities. Our NPO partners apply for that capital, receive it, and invest it into FAHF developments. That is grant money that simply does not flow into a normal real estate fund. It does flow into ours because the affordability is permanent and the partner deploying it is mission aligned.
In exchange, NPOs control the affordable units they fund. Through their investment they are allocated a number of the permanent affordable units. They place their own wait list recipients into those units and retain that control for the life of the building. The grant capital they brought to the project is the capital that built the units their clients now live in.
FC as General Partner holds the affordable units in perpetuity. We do not sell them off when the CMHC clock runs out. That is the difference between a 10 year affordability program and a permanent home.
FCPRET acquires the market rate units at stabilization. Our existing private real estate trust takes the market rate side of the building for long term hold. Same trustees, same operating discipline, same building.
The Foundation Affordable Housing Fund only works if the right partners are at the table. If you know any of the following, hit reply and let us connect. A 30 second introduction email from you could turn into a building that serves dozens of families for the next 50 years.
Ontario non profit housing operators with tenant placement mandates
Foundations or family offices with an affordable housing investment mandate
Impact intermediaries or DAFs deploying concessionary capital into Canadian housing
Municipal or provincial housing staff working on affordable supply
Organizations supporting adults with developmental disabilities, ODSP recipients, or seniors on fixed income
Affordable & supportive rental · Southwestern Ontario
Accredited Investors Only · Three Classes To Match Your Mandate
With gratitude,
PV, Mit & Jeff
P.S. The most valuable thing in your inbox is who you know. If reading this made you think of one person, one organization, one foundation, one not for profit, one government contact who should be in this conversation, please reply with their name. We will take it from there. The buildings get built one introduction at a time, and we are grateful for every one of them.
By the Numbers
