Thank you for this opportunity.
I am the general manager and co-founder of Kaléidoscope Social Impact, formerly the Saint John Community Loan Fund.
We're a 22-year-old organization, and we do three things. We do social finance, enabling other developers to develop affordable housing and mixed-use commercial and affordable housing. We also invest in social enterprises and microenterprises.
Our second service line is training—impact training, financial literacy, enterprise development training and youth entrepreneurship.
Our third vertical is our own real estate development. We have developed commercial new builds and have also renovated three buildings. We are currently at the last stage of design and financing for a 12-unit, plus commercial, supportive housing project. On the social finance side, we have three or four projects in the pipeline across New Brunswick that are building affordable housing units. There are probably about 50 altogether.
That's who we are as an organization. Our aim is to grow the fund to $10 million and hopefully to $20 million and $30 million. We probably need about $100 million in the fund just to leverage the builds that we do need in New Brunswick, to tell you the truth.
As context, New Brunswick's property values have doubled, and in some cases have tripled. We have 7,000 individuals on a waiting list for affordable housing in New Brunswick. Maybe a year and a half ago, when we did that study, there were 5,000. It has shot up incredibly, partially as a result of COVID and also as a result of people looking to the Maritimes as a place to live now. It's had a huge impact. We see many more people visible on the streets, as housing has pushed people from this level down to the next level and then to the streets.
If we look at the waiting list alone, at $200,000 a door, we would need $1.4 billion right there. The amount of money that's needed and that's being advocated.... It's still very limited, to put it in context.
I'll start by piggybacking on what's been said already. One is about enabling the maintenance of existing affordability. We were at a housing conference last week, and I heard an 8:1 ratio a few times. I didn't hear 15:1 as far as losing affordability to building new units goes, but that's our biggest problem right now. We have to find a way to purchase in the non-profit sector to maintain the existing supply, let alone build new stuff. I think that has to be a priority. There has to be a way to use that money to bridge the gap between what's being asked for on a price level and make it affordable for non-profits to purchase and maintain affordability.
As far as CMHC is concerned, since it's the main vehicle to get money out, it has to speed up the process. We're looking at six to 12 months for projects to get through a review, get to a letter of intent and finally get to an agreement and the flowing of capital. That's way too frigging slow. If you go to a bank, it won't take that long. We have to be able to speed that up. If you want to actually speed up the amount of affordable housing out there, you have to speed up the process. If that means you need more people, then hire more people at CMHC to do reviews.
The other option, similar to the social finance fund that they're going to be rolling out here shortly, is taking a chunk of money and getting giving it to intermediaries. That's another option. We are an intermediary, and we move considerably more quickly than CMHC in getting behind projects, so—