An A-to-Z guide helps nonprofits buy in Montreal’s hot real estate market
Many community groups are being squeezed out by sky-high rent increases and a shortage of adequate spaces.
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Between sharp rent increases, repossessions and a shortage of adequate places, non-profit community organizations say they are also experiencing the housing crisis in Montreal.
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But a new guide designed to help groups helping each other acquire their own buildings opens up a possible avenue for stable housing. The 77-page “Practical Guide for Community Organizations Carrying Out Real Estate Initiatives”, just launched by the Montreal Coalition of Neighborhood Tables, is a guide that presents from A to Z what NPOs need to know to assess their ability to buying or building a building, how to raise financing, what and how to buy and how to manage the purchased building.
“The document aims to help community organizations who want to buy because there is a housing crisis for them too in Montreal,” said the director of the coalition, Yves Bellavance, this week. Many groups are facing “dizzying” increases in commercial rents or seeing public sector partners, including school boards, repossess buildings that have housed community groups for years due to a growing need for class, he said.
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“There are groups that want to buy, but they don’t know how to go about it, how to make the financial arrangements or how to determine whether to create a cooperative and buy with other groups.”
The guide, available in French, has three chapters covering how to set up a project, how to set up financing and what you need to know about buying, building and renovating.
“The dynamic we find ourselves in now means that there are fewer and fewer private or public spaces available for community organizations,” said the coalition’s Gessica Gropp, who spent nearly a year research and write the guide.
The coalition also launched Initiative Immobilière Communautaire du Grand Montréal with Centraide of Greater Montreal in 2021 to provide funding to community organizations wishing to acquire a property.
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Yet purchasing is not an option available to all community groups. The coalition is also considering other solutions, Bellavance said, such as working with governments to requalify surplus buildings as social housing and community spaces.
The Carrefour Solidaire Community Food Center in Montreal’s Centre-Sud district could have used the guide before buying and renovating its community center, which opened in January, said the group’s co-executive director, Vanessa Girard Tremblay. The association, which fights against food insecurity, spent 10 years looking for a building in the neighborhood.
“The guide would have been very useful to us,” said Girard Tremblay. “I wish it had come out when I was launching our project. It would have been an indispensable tool for this project. I had to find the information on my own and made a lot of missteps that I could have avoided had I had this guide.
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It’s been a long road for Carrefour Solidaire because the buildings were either too expensive, the land was contaminated, or the space was too big or badly located, she said. He eventually found a building that had been vacated by another nonprofit that closed during the pandemic.
Carrefour Solidaire then raised $930,000 for the purchase and renovations without requiring a mortgage from a bank.
The group sold $500 community bonds offering a 2% interest rate, raising $255,000 from 60 investors, Girard Tremblay said. Public grants and grants from foundations did the rest. Each five-year $500 bond is redeemable in October 2025, when the investor will receive their $500 plus $50, representing five years of 2% annual non-compound interest.
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The group plans to raise funds and use proceeds from its groceries to repay investors, Girard Tremblay added.
Meanwhile, members of Vivre Saint-Michel en santé are currently reading the section of the coalition’s guide that concerns construction, said Gaëlle Guillaume of the group. Vivre Saint-Michel en santé is project manager for the community’s new “Community House” which will be built on land acquired from the City of Montreal on boul. St-Michel.
The community center will house at least seven nonprofit groups and a daycare center, she said. The center “will not only allow services to continue, but also prevent these groups from always having to move from place to place,” Guillaume said.
The coalition’s guide offers an educational tool for a younger generation that doesn’t have decades of experience, she said.
“It also shows that there is a need in the community,” Guillaume said.
“It’s not like the guide came out of nowhere. It responds to needs that have existed for many years in the community organization.
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