Leadership

SCAFFOLD: Supporting Affordable Housing Efforts

Hamilton Community Foundation has made a 10-year, $50 million commitment to affordable housing that brings together its resources based on research, consultation and the advice of policy experts to work toward addressing this urgent need.

We’re calling this strategy SCAFFOLD: Supporting Affordable Housing Efforts, because just as scaffolding delivers the right support at the right time in a construction project, SCAFFOLD will guide HCF’s decisions on where our philanthropic capital will have the most impact and the best roles we can play. 

Over the last year our community leadership work in this area included:

A history of commitment to affordable housing

Just as there is no one person, sector, organization, or level of government that can solve the current crisis in affordable housing, there is also no single solution to this systemic problem. That is why HCF supports initiatives across the housing continuum from supportive housing to affordable home ownership.

Over the past eight years HCF has been on a path to support the affordable housing eco-system. It started in 2015 with a mortgage to Indwell, a local affordable housing provider, that helped finance the development of 47 units of supportive housing on a former used car lot on Main Street East.

Our work since 2015 has included:

As of our March 31, 2023 year end, HCF has $12.7 million in investments across the affordable housing continuum. We have $3.9 million in further commitments pending funding and $6.2 million in investments that have been repaid to HCF in the last eight years and recycled back to the community. Since we started this journey, we have invested a total of $18.9 million and with our current commitments will have $22.8 million focused on affordable housing. Click here to view a snapshot of HCF’s contribution, to date, of catalytic capital as part of the financing required.

We continue to develop our comprehensive affordable housing strategy with a goal of more than doubling our work to date to the $50 million target. There is much to be done in this urgent community and national issue and we continue to focus on bringing people, ideas, and resources to bear in our role as a community foundation.

Guided by research

HCF has been guided by research and expertise in developing our affordable housing strategy. You can access some of these resources here.