Ontario Loan Guarantee Delivers Housing Affordability

Trillium Housing Non-Profit focuses on creating housing affordability.?We invest in the development of entry-level ownership housing and we make those homes even more affordable by providing innovative financing to modest-income families that allows them to own their home.

Trillium Housing is proud to have completed a pilot project with The Province of Ontario.?Recently we fully repaid a bank loan (with commercial rate interest) which we were able to obtain with Ontario support.??Under this pilot, Trillium used a loan guarantee provided by the Government of Ontario to obtain a loan from TD Bank. This loan provided Trillium with the equity to acquire land for two of our recent projects.

The available equity allowed Trillium, in partnership with Van Mar Constructors, to purchase two sites: The Loop Urban Towns (Toronto) and The Maxx Urban Towns (Pickering). The land in Toronto was a former streetcar turning circle and the land in Pickering was a surplus Ontario site that was a part of the 1970s Seaton land assembly.

The Loop Urban Towns in Toronto is 62 stacked townhomes that infill a long derelict site in an existing neighbourhood.?While the streetcar is gone, the site is still very well served with transit and a school across the street. ?Trillium was able to finance 25 families with a Trillium Mortgage – which is a regular-payment-free mortgage and is saving our families an average of $500/MONTH in housing costs. A fantastic aspect of the Trillium Mortgage program is that it is completely inclusive.??There is absolutely no difference between families that receive a Trillium Mortgage and families who purchase the home with conventional financing only. While Trillium was able to put together financing from other government programs to supplement their mortgage financing, this project only went forward with the initial Ontario Loan Guarantee. The Province of Ontario incurred NO cost either to back our build of 62 entry-level homes or in Trillium Housing’s issuance of 25 Trillium Mortgages. Our families average household income is in the mid $60,000s.

At the Maxx Urban Towns in Pickering Trillium Housing is building over 200 entry-level priced stacked townhomes (WOW)! ?The last unit sales are in process of being completed and Trillium Housing is on the way to finance 40 families with a Trillium Mortgage. The Trillium Mortgage commitments for this project have had to be increased due to the federal mortgage stress test rules that have unfairly hurt modest-income families. Trillium expects to finance families with an average household income in the mi-d$70,000 and the housing cost savings will be closer to $600 PER MONTH! The cost to the Province of Ontario will also be $0.

Ontario’s Cost / Benefit of providing a loan guarantee:

Cost:

$0

Exposed to development risk over 5 years

Benefit:

278 new entry-level homes built

Over 60 families with much lower housing cost

In total $32,500/month SAVED!

While it took a few years of pleading and persuasion to finalize the approval of the pilot project, Trillium could not have accomplished their achievement without the support from various partners and would like to personally thank Ministers Jeffrey, Mauro, McMeekin, Ballard, Milczyn and Clark, their staff Brian Teefy, Scott Kirkham and Alex Earthy, from the Ministry Erich Freiler, Inge Beamish, Nadine Scott, ?Sarah Hubbs, Janet Hope and many others from MMAH, and from TD Bank ?Sylvia Fazzolari and her team at in commercial lending..

As The Loop families have owned their homes now for a full year, Trillium has sent out a survey to the families we financed to measure the financial and social impact from our innovative partnership between government, finance and non-profit sectors. ??We will report on our findings soon.

We would be pleased to work with Minister Clark and his team to build off the overwhelming success of our pilot project and turn it into an innovative, cost-effective Ontario program to support non-profit delivery of ownership housing affordability.?

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