Financing Better Performance: An Investment Stack Framework for Affordable and Mixed-Income Housing

Earlier in August, CAGBC released Building Better Value: How Build Canada Homes Can Drive Long-Term Housing Performance, setting out four actions for Build Canada Homes (BCH) to make performance a core part of how it finances housing. This new report, developed with Urban Equation and with affordable housing expertise from Nesting Ground, details how those actions play out in practice, mapping BCH’s financing, land and partnership tools alongside federal, provincial and municipal programs across a project’s full cost stack. 

Why long-term affordability needs a new financing approach 

Housing affordability doesn’t end at the mortgage or rent cheque. It’s shaped by energy bills, maintenance, and how well a building holds up over decades. Measures that most improve long-term performance, such as high-performance envelopes, heat pumps and geothermal, often carry additional upfront costs, while their benefits, including lower operating costs and reduced risk, accrue over years.

While governments have committed significant funding to housing, project teams must often piece together multiple sources of support to move projects forward. The challenge is not simply the amount of investment available, but how effectively funding programs work together to support both housing delivery and long-term value.

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Mapping the housing investment stack 

The report examines Canada’s housing funding landscape through the lens of a typical developer cost stack: land, soft costs, hard costs and operating costs. By organizing housing investments around how projects are actually financed and delivered, it identifies where support is strong, where critical gaps remain, and where Build Canada Homes can have the greatest impact. 

To support this analysis, the report reviews 58 federal, provincial and municipal housing programs, mapping them against each stage of the cost stack to show how existing tools work together, where they fall short, and how BCH’s financing, land and partnership tools can help close those gaps.  

The result is an investment stack framework that provides a practical roadmap for supporting affordable, high-performing housing while improving long-term value for residents, housing providers and governments.

What’s inside

• An investment stack framework organized around land, soft costs, hard costs and operating costs. 
• A review of 58 housing programs across federal, provincial and municipal governments.  
• Analysis of where existing programs provide support and where opportunities remain to strengthen long-term housing performance.  
• Practical recommendations for implementing Plan Better, Build Better, Verify Performance and Reward Performance through BCH.  
• A modelled affordable housing project that demonstrates funding coverage, financing gaps and potential solutions. 

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