Mayor Olivia Chow Launches $100 Million Community Land Trust Fund to Protect Affordable Rentals

TORONTO — Mayor Olivia Chow announced on Monday the launch of the $100 million Toronto Community Land Trust and Rental Housing Acquisition Fund, providing low-interest forgivable municipal loans to non-profit housing cooperatives, indigenous housing societies, and community land trusts to acquire existing private multi-family rental buildings.

The initiative, funded through revenue from the city's updated Municipal Accommodation Tax and the Multi-Unit Residential Acquisition (MURA) program, aims to permanently remove approximately 1,500 private rental apartments from the speculative real estate market and preserve them as permanently affordable social and cooperative housing.

Stopping Renovictions and Preserving Existing Affordable Housing Stock Housing research indicates that for every new affordable housing unit constructed in Toronto, several existing affordable rental suites are lost due to private real estate acquisitions, corporate conversions, and renovictions.

"The fastest and most cost-effective way to address our housing crisis is to protect the affordable homes we already have," Mayor Olivia Chow said at Parkdale Community Land Trust in Toronto. "By equipping community non-profits with $100 million in rapid-acquisition capital, we are stopping corporate landlords from buying up apartment buildings and pricing out working families. These buildings will stay permanently affordable in community hands forever."

Rapid Acquisition Protocols and Building Repairs The fund is structured to provide non-profit purchasers with binding pre-approved financing within 14 business days, allowing them to compete effectively against private equity bidders in commercial real estate auctions.

Participating non-profits will also receive direct capital repair grants of up to $35,000 per suite to replace aging building boilers with high-efficiency heat pumps, repair building roofs, and upgrade electrical panels.

Tenant advocacy organizations, municipal councillors, and non-profit housing executives commended the historic program, emphasizing that community land trusts provide permanent housing security for vulnerable seniors, newcomers, and working families across Toronto.