Ryan and Nicole Stoneman with their three children, eight-year-old Valerie, six-year-old Madeline, and two-year-old Gabrielle, at the family's affordable housing project they rent in Calgary, on Nov. 29.in the summer of 2023, Nicole and Ryan Stoneman scrambled to find a three-bedroom rental in Calgary’s tight rental market.
“We’re now out of debt, and we want to save up enough to buy a home,” Ms. Stoneman says. “If it wasn’t for this place, we would have to both be working and still struggling, as our kids would be in group care.” These actions, however, aren’t enough to meet the growing need for affordable housing. “The biggest barrier is access to predictable capital funding,” Ms. Woodgate says.
In many cases, preparing a proposal requires developing a detailed design program, as well as a pro forma, or a financial projection that determines the feasibility of a project, but there are few grants available to support this work. In addition, because the proposal review process seldom takes less than a year, projects often need to be updated, increasing their cost and viability.