WOODGREEN AS A HOUSING SOLUTION

Karla Medina in front of her new home at EVOLV.

WoodGreen is proud to be a leader in affordable housing in Toronto. With over 60 years of affordable housing experience, we bring a collaborative, entrepreneurial spirit to our work.

In 2017, an eight-month pregnant Karla Medina fled to a shelter with her one-year-old in tow escaping an abusive relationship. In the shelter, she heard about WoodGreen’s Homeward Bound program, a four-year intensive program that offers a college diploma, child care, housing, case management, counselling and much more.

This year, Karla graduated from the Homeward Bound program with a full-time job helping women and girls. She also moved into a new, purpose-built rental residence in Toronto’s Regent Park neighbourhood, called EVOLV.

“Housing allows me to provide a safe environment for my children to grow. It’s a place they can call home.”

EVOLV is an example of corporate, government and philanthropic leaders coming together to make the impossible possible.

In early 2021, Sun Life and The Daniels Corporation announced a new public-private partnership agreement with WoodGreen Community Services and the City of Toronto to integrate long-term, affordable, rental living in their newest multi-family residential development. This partnership unlocked 34 doors to 34 single mothers who are graduates of WoodGreen’s Homeward Bound program.

This is one of the innovative approaches WoodGreen is taking to meet our ambitious target to triple our housing stock by adding 2,000 new units over the next 10 years, bringing our total to 3,000 units. Over the last year, we have tested a series of approaches including acquiring government-owned land to develop, integrating with other agencies like Accommodation, Information and Support (AIS) and forging new, strong partnerships with the private sector to develop our own land.

Along with tripling our housing stock, WoodGreen’s housing strategy in our new Strategic Plan outlines a goal to maintain and improve existing housing assets to ensure long-term accessibility, reliability and satisfaction.

This Innovative Energy and Capital Replacement Project is a 10-year, $3-million project done in partnership with Efficiency Capital and engineering firms Finn Projects and SensorSuite Inc.

Benefiting WoodGreen, the residents of its buildings and the environment, this is the first project of its kind in Canada to achieve the internationally-recognized Investor Ready Energy Efficiency (IREE) certification, awarded by Green Business Certification Inc. Canada.

Providing improvements to the aging buildings improves the air quality and comfort of tenants’ homes and increases the value of the buildings. The project will reduce WoodGreen’s building portfolio carbon footprint by 250 tonnes per year. The upgrades will provide nearly $5.7 million in savings over the next 20-30 years and will allow WoodGreen to avoid approximately $6.1 million in capital costs that could then be used for other improvements.

This unique real-time measurement and monetization of the savings shows that it’s possible for non-profits to modernize their buildings, make them more energy-efficient, and use the savings to pay back financial loans associated with the project.