Scaling Up Canada’s Community Housing Sector: Bundling assets and building capacity to create the future of housing

This structured learning session built on evidence-informed insights from three practitioners:

• Thom Armstrong: B.C. Community Land Trust, British Columbia
• Cliff Youdale: Bumblebee Initiative, Ottawa
• Stephan Corriveau: Plancher, Quebec

The panel, hosted on June 23, 2026, focused on bundling assets – equity, development and management expertise, land – to scale up non-market housing. It was designed to further revise a model of what works, what does not, under what conditions, and what is transferable across contexts. Following the moderated panel discussion, participants broke into three groups (National, West, and East) to discuss key questions related to the bundling model.

Learnings from three case studies

“You pool your assets, but you don’t pool your identity.”

Bundling came as a response to the fragmentation of the non-market housing sector, without requiring mergers or losing organizational independence. Bundling enables pooling of assets, expertise, and capacity while maintaining organizational autonomy.

• B.C. CLT aggregates assets through a community land trust, allowing them to leverage municipal land, access financing, spread risk across projects, and preserve long-term affordability of existing properties as well as build new affordable homes.
• Bumblebee Initiative distinguishes capital development from service delivery, allowing supportive housing providers to focus on operations while Ottawa Community Housing leads development. Standardized designs and collaborative planning models reduce competition for limited resources such as government land, duplication, risk, and delays.
• Fonds Plancher pools equity from many small non-market housing providers, unlocking capital that organizations cannot leverage independently. The model is designed to be a “win-win” by providing tangible returns to participating organizations.

Evidence and indicators of success

“If you don’t do it, it will never get done.”

“In essence, what we’re trying to do is create this capacity in the sector that’s broader than what we have individually.”

Bundling allows non-market housing organizations to move away from waiting for funding opportunities to proactively shape the housing system. Success in bundling is measured by the number of affordable housing units delivered or acquired, partnerships established, and changes in sector capacity.

For B.C. CLT, portfolio growth, increased municipal support, and improved access to financing demonstrate that bundling can support and sustain expansion of non-market housing. Bumblebee Initiative’s success is reflected in stronger coordination across supportive housing providers, shovel-ready designs, and creating long-term development pipelines. And Fonds Plancher’s key indicators include the number of participating organizations, total equity mobilized, and the ability to increase the sector’s share in the overall housing stock.

Barriers to bundling

“What is really scaring a lot of people, particularly smaller organizations, is really that threat of mergers or acquisitions and amalgamation and losing your identity… these are all programs or initiatives that leverage assets or resources or ways of working partnerships without losing autonomy or identity.”

• Building trust required significant time and engagement before organizations were willing to pool assets or share responsibilities.
• Portfolio-based approaches were new to lenders, existing government funding, and procurement systems that were designed for individual projects, making innovation and acceptability difficult.
• Organizations were reluctant to participate unless the model clearly preserved autonomy and/or promised tangible benefits, including financial returns.

Enablers and lessons learned

“Be just naive enough to do it anyway!”

“Things move at the speed of trust.”

Successful bundling initiatives need strong leadership on three fronts to build and sustain momentum: (1) backbone organization/coordinating entity, (2) political champion/municipal partnerships, and (3) early financial investors/supporters that provide the confidence needed to test new models.

The three models discussed have evolved over time, highlighting the importance of flexibility and contextual learnings. Proactive planning allows organizations to shape shovel-ready pipelines and build long-term partnerships.

Transferability

“Bundling will struggle if local government doesn’t see it as adding value in building out a more muscular, non-market housing sector.”

Core principles of bundling – pooling resources, sharing expertise, and leveraging collective assets – can be replicated. However, transferability requires adapting the process, as bundling approaches need local knowledge along with centralized capacity. Panelists stressed the importance of trust, relationships, leadership, and stakeholder buy-in, noting that the process of building collaboration is often as important as the model itself.

• Successful models grow from existing networks, trusted relationships, and investment in relationship-building
• Lead organizations need sufficient capacity to coordinate collaborative paradigm shifts

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National group discussion

Participants emphasized that successful bundling depends on trust, patience, and a clear shared value proposition. Building collaboration often requires years of relationship-building, transparent governance, and clear roles and responsibilities before organizations are willing to share assets, capacity, or risk. Strong anchor organizations, credible champions, and tangible benefits (social or financial) were seen as critical to attracting partners and sustaining momentum. Participants also noted the importance of proactive, sector-led planning to move beyond project-by-project approaches and create long-term development pipelines.

Participants identified limited organizational capacity and concerns about risk as significant barriers to bundling. Many housing providers operate on a small scale and are deeply connected to specific communities, which can make organizations cautious about sharing control. While participants viewed the core principles from the three case studies as highly transferable, they stressed that successful replication requires adapting models to local contexts and investing in the trust, governance, and relationships needed to support collaboration.

Importantly, participants noted that lenders, funding programs, and underwriting practices continue to be designed around individual projects rather than portfolios, creating major challenges for bundling.

West group discussion

Bundling models are a coalition of the willing, effective only when organizations can clearly identify mutual benefits, when the value proposition is clear, and when bundling preserves autonomy while creating tangible benefits for all partners. Thus, participants suggested that bundling should not be a single model but rather a toolkit of approaches that can combine financing, development, operational expertise, planning functions, or governance supports in different ways depending on local conditions. Successful bundles should also consider the different communities or subgroups. For example, whether it is an Indigenous-specific bundling model or Indigenous organizations participating within broader bundles, recognizing the need to respect distinct governance, relationships, and community priorities should be essential.

Participants also identified other challenges in their practices, including education processes with governments, funders, and housing providers, recognition of different organizations contribution to a bundle, and mitigating power imbalances between urban and rural communities, large and small organizations, established and emerging partnerships.

East group discussion

Participants in the East Coast breakout identified several common patterns across the three case studies. Successful collaborations used practical, outcome-focused, and flexible approaches to achieving progress, and are characterized by a significant appetite for risk and a willingness to work over long time horizons. Although the circumstances that sparked each initiative varied (some emerged through external opportunities, while others had to be created by the organizations themselves), they remained focused on social outcomes and clearly articulated a “win-win” proposition for participating organizations and the wider community.

The discussion highlighted trust, leadership, and skilled facilitation and engagement as central conditions for success. Leading organizations must be willing to take risks and invest deeply in relationships with partners. Participants emphasized the value of starting with the shared opportunity rather than trying to resolve every partnership detail in advance – and allow the appropriate partnership structure to emerge through the work. Strong storytelling, early demonstrations of progress and access to funders or intermediary organizations (that can connect partners, share knowledge and provide a financial backstop) can help reduce risk and attract further investment. Significant barriers remain in bundling assets, including that the risk tolerance among funders, governments and potential partners may be much lower than within the organizations leading the work, particularly when a proposal departs from established practices. Initiatives may face concerns about organizational identity, control, balance sheets, ownership, and the ability of smaller organizations to absorb large-scale investment. Limited capacity, restricted access to existing equity and a tendency for unconventional proposals to receive an initial “no” can further inhibit progress. Questions also remain about the feasibility of bundling across provincial boundaries as well as who ultimately owns or controls the assets in financial bundling initiatives.

This design ideation workshop tested the current Bundling Assets models and tools in the N.B. context is part of a national effort to mobilize bundling as a strategy for scaling affordable housing.  

Date: May 29, 2026 
Facilitators: Bryn Ferris (Inspirit Labs – Lansdowne Consulting Group), Sarah Button (Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation), Cory Herc (Human Development Council) 
Location: NBNPHA 2026 Annual Conference, Saint John N.B.  
Topic: Bundling Non-Market Housing Assets: Practical ideation and testing   

Participants

50+ participants representing nonprofit housing providers, government representatives, development experts, and sector leaders, and community land trusts.  

Purpose of the workshop  

These pair of bilingual workshops introduced participants to our national project working with nonmarket developers and providers to pool land, resources, and expertise to scale up the sector across Canada. The session aimed to clarify what bundling is (and isn’t), explore its advantages, and test the models and tools developed to date through the lab. Participants worked in groups to identify the current needs of their organization and to develop practical bundling initiative opportunities with other local groups. More than a half dozen actionable bundling asset initiatives were articulated and developed through the two workshops.  

Key findings and themes 

Need for clarity in new concepts: 

• “Bundling” distinguished from organizational mergers was a new concept to most participants and they requested additional clear definitions for all available possibilities along the continuums of integration 
• Participants requested more examples of what is working and existing initiatives to help them understand what is possible  

Desirability: 

• Many participants enthusiastically took to the model and tool, saying they met a clear existing need and gap in the current landscape 
• The ability to build capacity without sacrificing identify or local community values was particularly important to rural and francophone providers  

Feasibility: 

• Participants highlighted the importance of access to experts along the bundling journey, as many smaller organizations do not have the expertise in house 
• The provincial government representatives were highly engaged in exploring the policy levers and infrastructure needed to support bundling  

Viability:   

• Participants saw momentum and support for funding and scaling their initiatives over time 
• Discussions with who ‘holds’ the resources for bundling and helps incubates such initiatives in the province is ongoing   

This workshop is part of a national effort to mobilize bundling as a strategy for scaling affordable housing. Stay tuned for updates from the Bundling Assets Solutions Lab as the prototype evolves. 

Date: November 17, 2025 
Facilitators: Adrienne Pacini (SHS Inc.) and Carolyn Whitzman (University of Toronto, School of Cities)  
Location: Housing Central Conference, Vancouver B.C. 
Topic: Bundling Non-Market Housing Assets: A national project   

Participants 

30+ participants representing nonprofit housing providers, government representatives, development experts, and sector leaders, including organizations from Metro Vancouver, Calgary Housing, Phoenix Society, and community land trusts. 

Purpose of the workshop 

This workshop introduced participants to our national project working with nonmarket developers and providers to pool land, resources, and expertise to scale up the sector across Canada. The session aimed to clarify what bundling is (and isn’t), explore its advantages, and identify key dimensions for successful implementation. Participants shared experiences, challenges, and ideas to inform the next iteration of the bundling prototype model. 

Key findings and themes

Clarifying bundling:

• Bundling is not a one-off partnership or organizational merger; it’s a long-term strategy to pool assets for scale 

Advantages of bundling:

• Addresses funding challenges and improves feasibility  
• Enables collaboration across organizations with complementary resources (land, expertise, capital) and expertise (developer, provider, service managers, operators) 

Risks and dynamics:

• Power imbalances between large and small organizations must be managed 
• Resident education and involvement are critical to success 
• Funders’ rigid rules and underwriting requirements can block joint ventures 

Role of third parties:  

• Development service organizations and financial institutions are key partners when bundlees lack expertise or capital 

Housing is an infrastructure of care. This workshop marks an important step toward innovative, collaborative nonmarket housing solutions in Muskoka. 

Date: November 4, 2025
Facilitator: Carol Whitzman (University of Toronto, School of Cities)
Host organization: Muskoka Community Land Trust (MCLT)
Topic: Bundling assets as a strategy to scale up nonmarket housing in the region

Participants

The session brought together approximately 60 nonmarket housing providers, local and regional government representatives, community organizations, and advocates. Participants included groups such as Community Living, YWCA, GAP (Gravenhurst Against Poverty), and other local stakeholders committed to addressing housing challenges in Muskoka. 

Purpose of the workshop

The goal was to introduce the concept of asset bundling – collaborating across organizations to share resources, reduce risk, and create economies of scale for affordable housing development throughout the region of Muskoka and its municipalities (Huntsville, Gravenhurst, Bracebridge etc.). 

Key findings and themes

Benefits of bundling:  

• Shared expertise, cost savings, stronger collective voice, and holistic community planning

Enablers for success:

• Strong governance, shared vision, political and financial champions, and pilot projects to build momentum

Challenges to overcome:

• Egos and competitiveness in the industry, poor communication, and complex legal/ownership structures 

Next steps for MCLT 

Identify major players in the region to launch a small pilot project and explore land opportunities for collaborative development.  

This workshop highlighted the potential of collaboration and innovation to strengthen Manitoba’s nonmarket housing sector.  

Date: October 6, 2025
Facilitator: Carolyn Whitzman (University of Toronto, School of Cities) and Stephan Richard (Community Housing Transformation Centre) 
Location: Manitoba Non-Profit Housing Association Annual Conference, Winnipeg MB
Topic: Growth models for community housing  

Participants   

The workshop brought together over 50 nonprofit housing providers, sector leaders, and funders, including representatives from community organizations and foundations interested in collaborative housing solutions. 

Purpose of the workshop   

The session introduced strategies for scaling nonmarket housing through asset bundling and explored financing opportunities for community housing providers. After presentations, participants broke into small groups to discuss key discussion questions. 

Key findings and themes 

Benefits of bundling:  

• Cost savings in operations and development 
• Increased ability to raise capital and leverage assets 
• Faster builds, efficient procurement, and shared administrative resources 
• Opportunities for mentorship, replication, and maintaining momentum

Enablers of success:

• Shared vision, trust, and clear governance 
• Strong leadership or anchor institution 
• Technical expertise and early planning 
• Government support for land, funding, and guarantees 

Pitfalls to avoid:

• Loss of values or unclear objectives 
• Internal friction among boards and partners 
• Complex ownership structures and lack of clear decision-making

Must-haves:

• A strong sponsor or champion is essential to advocate and coordinate, however collaboration remains key 
• Property management, accounting, and development expertise 

Next steps for MNPHA  

• Act as facilitator and backbone organization 
• Explore partnerships with financial institutions and social impact investors 
• Develop capacity-readiness programs and standardized design templates for non-profits 

Scaling Up Canada’s Community Housing Sector: Bundling assets and building capacity to create the future of housing – Developing a Model

‘Bundling assets’ means multiple actors pooling their assets for the purpose of loan equity, developing sites together, and possibly sharing some aspects of management – such as property management staff, bulk-buying equipment, using a common auditor – while maintaining organizational autonomy. Bundling assets help organizations survive and thrive.

The ‘Bundling Assets’ Solutions Lab, funded by the CMHC, investigates how nonmarket housing developers and providers – public, non-profit and cooperative – can work together to scale up much needed affordable housing

In this first report, we learn from existing models of bundling assets – one older, one new, and one emergent – to see what works, what does not, and what should happen next. We focus on three case studies:

1. Community Land Trust B.C. (CLT B.C.): Since 2012, it has brought together 40 cooperatives and non-profit agencies to develop more than 1,000 new or renovated homes, with 800 more in development, mostly on government and nonmarket land

2. Bumblebee Initiative: Developed in 2024, Ontario Community Housing (OCH), along with three supportive housing providers, is taking a portfolio approach to developing over 200 new supportive homes a year on government land in a new initiative

3. Fonds Plancher: Since 2022, Plancher has brought together 50 partners in Quebec to combine their equity with government, institutional, and community investment. However, unlike CLT B.C. and OCH, the absence of a pilot project has meant that the initiative is not moving forward as quickly as planned

Related media:

“Aggregating Resources,” By Lana Hall. Posted with permission of the publisher of NRU Publishing Inc. Original article first appeared in Novae Res Urbis GTHA, Vol. 28, No. 45, Wednesday, November 12, 2025.

“Beyond the Buzzwords: What “Scale” and “Innovation” Really Means in Housing.” On the Way Home podcast. December, 2025.