SPRE Accelerator 2023 Cohort

Catholic Crosscultural Services

Toronto, ON

The Organization

CCS provides services to assist immigrants and refugees of all faiths, ethnicities, countries of origin, immigration status, sexual orientation, or political affiliation to develop the skills and acquire the necessary knowledge to settle, integrate and succeed in Canada.  

The Project

We have named our project The Gathering Place. The Gather Place is both a building – focused on affordable housing with onsite/near site wrap around services – as well as a concept to build much needed housing through intentional partnerships. 

To build new affordable housing at scale, we seek to adopt a new approach to governance, with the focus on shared leadership, decision-making and accountability, before, during and post construction. This work is occurring in parallel to a potential development opportunity to collectively build 600+ units of 100% affordable and deeply affordable housing in Toronto. We are negotiating the terms of ownership, developing the governance and building out the plan with the goal of shovel in ground in the next two years.