With the goals of GREAT to build community supported, community run eco affordable and attainable housing, the structure of the project may get increasingly complicated. We want and need to be able to raise money and access funding from the widest range of sources as we can.

When it comes to creating permanent affordable housing there are a number of models and approaches, with different types of organizations taking on the challenge in their own ways. Some are for-profit developers who get financial incentives to build units. Then there are charities and non-profits which build or support affordable housing, and increasingly there are community land trusts who develop or work with partners to create affordable housing. Yet another model is what some call a community development co-operative.

G.R.E.A.T is a community partner in a research project looking at the National Housing Strategy.

What does the “G.R.E.A.T” in G.R.E.A.T Housing stand for?

There are a good number of organizations dedicated to the very important cause/issue of promoting and building more sustainable buildings. There are a good number of organizations dedicated to the very important/cause of promoting and creating affordable housing.

The G.R.E.A.T Housing project is proud to be part of the Investment Readiness Program funded by the Government of Canada's SI/SF Strategy.

G.R.EA.T News! In our most recent newsletter we profile Union Co-op and look at an important initiative to make donating land for #affordablehousing easier

Did you know that if a person or a corporation wants to donate land to a Community Land Trust (CLT) that the tax credit or offset generated by the donation will not overcome the tax owing from the capital gain? In other words they will lose the asset and owe tax for doing so! This means that there is a lot of land that is just held or sold. There is a strong tax disincentive to donate the land for affordable housing.

We ask a lot of our homes. In fact we are quite demanding. Design, of course, is key here.

Our first newsletter went out, highlighting the background pieces on the G.R.E.A.T housing project and you can read it here.

If we want to serve the full community this means that we must have units that meet the needs of people regardless of ability or disability.

How can the G.R.E.A.T Housing project say it will build “permanent affordable housing”?

They give us shelter and sometimes comfort and sometimes even look great. But our buildings are a climate change catastrophe.

Over the past decade, housing has become increasingly unaffordable in Ontario. This has taken shape in Muskoka in ways that are unique to this district’s economic and demographic profile.

The G.R.E.A.T. Housing project will foster and demonstrate the process of implementing an environmentally sustainable affordable housing Community Land Trust solution in the context of an unaffordable housing market and climate change.