Sustainable and well maintained homes

Greening our co-ops

What is the issue?

Making Canada’s 90,000 co-op homes in this country greener would make a significant contribution to our national efforts to achieve a cleaner, more sustainable environment.

However, existing government programs are designed primarily to assist private home-owners and do not work well for housing co-ops. Larger, multiple unit buildings – like our big co-ops – do not qualify for any assistance currently.

What is the solution?

Housing co-ops want to do our share to improve Canada’s air quality and protect our planet.

But to achieve our goals we will need to work in partnership with government, with programs of loans and incentives to carry out major projects

To find out more about these issues go to the CHF Canada Action Centre

Capital replacement reserves

What is the issue?

Most co-ops that were built by the Ontario government and then downloaded to the municipalities do not have enough money to meet future capital replacement needs

This problem is not the result of poor management by co-ops. The formula used by government to calculate the replacement reserve needed is wrong.

What is the solution

Governments need to address this issue, fix the formula and provide co-ops with money to fund their replacement reserves.