Homegrown solutions

Zoomer | January 1st, 2006

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation is running an innovative program that helps seniors. “Homegrown Solutions” is designed to encourage creative solutions for local communities to lever resources to meet their seniors’ housing needs. Participation in the initiative is open to individuals, communities and organizations, private or public, seeking affordable and practical solutions.

The Lionsview Seniors Planning Society of North Vancouver is one of 18 Canada-wide winners of up to $20,000 each in the program. The seniors group will receive $18,800 from CMHC to examine creative options for repairing and rehabilitating existing, affordable non-profit and private properties to ensure they are safe and accessible for seniors. The intent of the initiative is to preserve the existing affordable housing stock and to enable aging seniors to remain living independently.

“We were very impressed with the quality of all the innovative proposals which demonstrate the vast potential for community involvement in finding local solutions to housing issues,” says the Minister responsible for CMHC, Alfonse Gagliano.

Since the initiative’s launch in 1995, more than 140 applications ha been received from all regions of the country on subjects as diverse as housing trust funds, recycling building materials to reduce construction costs and using accumulated equity in housing as a source of funding for renovations.