The Government of Canada has announced the launch of the Canada Greener Affordable Housing (CGAH) program, which will modernize affordable multi-unit residential buildings by making them more energy efficient and affordable to operate, while also extending building lifespans.

To make this transition possible for affordable housing providers, CGAH has two funding opportunities:

• Contributions for pre-retrofit activities needed to plan, prepare, and apply for retrofit funding.
• Providing forgivable and low-interest loans to help finance building retrofit measures and activities needed to meet climate objectives.

To be eligible, applicants must be an affordable housing provider with an affordable housing purpose and a proven mandate to provide housing deemed affordable. The housing project is considered affordable if it is mandated to follow:

• a municipal, provincial, territorial, Indigenous government, or CMHC program or product affordability criteria; or
• other affordability criteria such as rent-geared-to-income, low-income, moderate-income, established income, or rent limits/thresholds, or other criteria as accepted by CMHC.

Affordable housing providers interested in the CGAH program can begin preparing applications as the application portal will open this June.

For details on the CGAH program, including eligibility criteria and a checklist of what is required to apply, please visit cmhc.ca/CGAH online. CMHC will also hold information sessions for stakeholders and potential participants.