Preserving affordable rental homes and increasing housing supply are essential to ensuring Canadians can continue to live in the communities they call home. As housing demand grows, protecting existing affordable rental housing is an important part of maintaining affordability across the country.
Build Canada Homes (BCH), the federal Crown corporation dedicated to scaling up the supply of affordable housing, is advancing this work through partnerships that deliver more homes, faster, across Canada. As one of the first initiatives under BCH, the Canada Rental Protection Fund (CRPF) helps community housing providers acquire, preserve and renew at-risk rental properties, protecting affordable rental homes while strengthening community ownership and supporting long-term affordability.
Today, the Honourable Gregor Robertson, Minister of Housing and Infrastructure and Minister responsible for Pacific Economic Development Canada, announced that, following an open call for applications, the Canadian Housing Acquisition Fund (CHAF) has been selected as the successful applicant to deploy investments from the $1.5 billion CRPF. CHAF will leverage the CRPF to help community housing providers acquire and renew existing affordable rental housing. CHAF will also attract additional funding from charitable organizations, private investors and government, while allowing repaid funds to be reinvested in future acquisitions to protect more affordable homes across the country.
This investment will enable community housing providers to acquire and renew existing rental properties, preserving their affordability over the long term. This initiative has the potential to protect 7,000 at-risk rental homes over the Fund's first five years, with thousands more as capital is reinvested.
CHAF's founding members include Canadian Housing Renewal Association (CHRA), The National Indigenous Collaborative Housing Inc. (NICHI), Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada, and the BC Rental Protection Fund, combining sector expertise with a proven acquisition model that has already demonstrated success in protecting affordable rental housing at scale.
CHAF has launched its online intake portal and organizational pre-qualification process for eligible community housing providers. Information on eligibility requirements, affordability criteria, application processes, required documentation, and intake timelines is available on CHAF's website.
