The gifts that Indwell receives from individuals, businesses, churches, service clubs and foundations provide the initial funding needed for construction of new affordable housing projects. These gifts generally make up about 10–15% of the total project costs, but are crucial to the success of each project. These gifts demonstrate community buy-in and provide the base of funding that Indwell can then leverage to request government funding. Broad community support is a catalyst for other funding, multiplying about seven times in creating new affordable housing.

The largest contributor to Indwell’s new housing projects is the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), providing about 55% of the funds required through grants and financing. We also apply for municipal and provincial funding, which on average contribute about 30% of development costs.

Following construction, tenant rents cover about 38% of operational expenses, which includes managing our facilities and the carrying costs of financing. About 43% of Indwell’s revenue is from funding from the Ontario Ministry of Health for programs that provide a high level of supports, as well as other operating grants.

Indwell tenants have a stability rate of 89%.

Housing stability measures are most often expressed in three very simple states: unhoused, housed, and still housed. All three states are expressed in most supportive housing and housing first literature. Housing First oriented literature is most often concerned with two basic outcome transactions: moving from unhoused to housed and from housed to still housed.

The latter transaction is often expressed as a target, based on the Tsemberis 1999 Housing First randomized control trial where a cohort of people who were unhoused, became housed and at the end of 1 year (with the treatment—support—condition) 80% were still housed. 80% still housed remains the gold standard and has been demonstrated consistently through several randomized control trials.

Simply put, if you are providing opportunities for individuals with complexity (concurrent disorder, primary mental health, or other complexities) to access housing and following up with support, you should be aiming for a minimum of 80% of your original cohort still housed 12 months later.

In Indwell’s case, out of 143 people who moved in in 2020, 122 people stayed housed for more than 12 months.