Looking forward, Joe says that Trillium’s goal now is to continue making that impact, but finding ways to make it faster and at a larger scale. To date, he explains that all of their projects have taken over six years from land acquisition to completion, with the bulk of that time consisting of waiting for municipal approvals. “We’re a non-profit trying to deliver affordable housing, and unfortunately we’re facing exactly the same delays and obstacles that a big developer just trying to maximize profit faces,” Joe says. In order to better navigate those delays and challenges, Trillium is currently looking at pivoting and setting up what they call the ‘Trillium Mortgage Fund.’ Instead of having their impact investors put money into a specific housing development, they would have their investors put money into a general mortgage fund, which they would make available to any upcoming or ongoing development project that wanted to support affordable housing. “We’re hoping that will shorten the time from investment to helping a family,” Joe says. “Also, it would provide a risk-friendly investment offering – because, obviously, the impact investors’ money would only go into the mortgages, which would be secured by newly-built Tarionwarrantied homes. So there should be a bigger comfort level for our investors.” Trillium is already executing this concept in partnership with a couple developers with upcoming projects. For example, they are currently working with several developers in ‘Lakeview Village,’ which is an upcoming mixedJUNE 2023
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