John Fox Delivers Visionary Keynote at Blue Door’s AGM

At this year’s Blue Door Annual General Meeting, Robins Appleby LLP Partner and housing advocate John Fox delivered a compelling keynote address that illuminated both the urgency and the opportunity facing Canada’s affordable housing sector. Speaking as a long-time legal advisor and a member of Blue Door’s Champions Circle, John highlighted a pivotal moment: an impending shift of rental housing from private to non-profit hands, driven by new federal and provincial initiatives. With insight drawn from frontline experience, he challenged housing providers to rise to the occasion with excellence, adaptability, and heart. His remarks praised Blue Door’s leadership—from its shelter work to employment programs and the HALT land trust—and called on the sector to meet this historic moment with both strategic discipline and community-driven compassion.

"Good Evening,

I am very happy to be here with you tonight at Blue Door’s Annual General Meeting. This is a great organization and I am proud to be a part of it both as a lawyer and as a volunteer member of the Champions Circle of advisors.

Congratulations to you all on a great year.

I want to talk about housing.  We are sometimes inundated with stats – so I am going to focus on just two. First, across Canada, for every new affordable home we create, we lose 10. Its like rolling out a carpet only to have it roll up behind you faster than you can lay it out. Second, my favourite deal of last year was the acquisition of a building in Hamilton by its tenants. They formed a co-op and bought the building. 

They paid about $250,000 a unit for that building. Meanwhile, new units are costing $600,000.

We know we need more units, but we can not build our way to a healthy housing system and the Housing Sector is about to be asked to respond to this challenge and Blue Door has to be ready. What I want to do with my time tonight is talk about some of the changes I foresee in the next year, and how I see Blue Door’s role.

CHANGES THEY ARE A COMING

Let’s start with some of the big changes heading our way:

1. The Private Sector asset managers want to move assets to the non-profit sector. Last November, at the Ontario Non Profit Housing Association Conference, a CAPREIT representative – on stage – said as much: They want to move “vintage assets” to the non-profits.
   
   

   Meantime, two years ago the BC government had a  surplus and used it to seed the BC Rental Protection Fund. Last year, according to the fund, one half of all rental asset transfers involved the fund in some capacity. That concept is about to go national - the federal government has an RFP out right now intending to put $1.5B to the service of Non Profits and Co-ops in order to buy “vintage” assets.
   
   Here is change #1 - We are on the cusp of an unprecedented transfer of rental units from the private sector to non- profits.
   

2. The federal government says its coming back into housing with direct delivery with Build Canada Homes. We are expecting the federal Liberals to make good on their promise to create Build Canada Homes. We do not know how that will roll out yet. The government should consult. But it’s a good bet that it will at least provide direct development on federal lands of housing to be operated by non- profits.
   
   

   So there's Change #2 – The Federal government  building homes and creating opportunities for Non-Profits to step in and run the housing.
   

3. The third change is already a couple of years old, but, in my opinion – is only just beginning to be used. That’s the provincial Development Charge exemption for Non-Profits. Times are tough for the development community. This is causing the industry to rethink how they approach development opportunities and include non-profits. I am fielding calls from developers looking to partner with non-profits, or forming non-profits, in order to make their developments viable. Its not small money:

If we assume development charges at $60,000, on a 200 unit development, that’s a &12,000,000 build in advantage for a non-profit.

So there is change #3 – Non-Profits are actually popular dates. The demand for competent non-profit housing providers is about to increase in a big way. 

BLUE DOOR

Blue Door has been setting the bar for non profit creativity. It is committed to operational excellence in its shelter housing, it finds pathways to employment through Construct, it fills gaps in housing when it starts things like inclusion programs, it connects the housing sector through its podcast, and its positioned itself to answer the housing challenge through the HALT land trust. 

Land trusts are designed to keep as many units affordable as possible while remaining viable and even growing. They don’t usually operate the housing, allowing them to manage the assets and letting housing providers manage people. This specialization makes them well suited to acquiring and building units, and looking to others (or, in our case, Blue Door) to run those units.

The challenge is being able to take in private units or land as they become available and pair them with non-profit management. The opportunities will come and go quickly.
Can it be done? there is only one answer: yes. Yes, because it’s our job as a sector to preserve affordability. Yes, because if not now, when?

THE NEED FOR EXCELLENCE

That would be a good ending for this speech: the opportunity is now. Grab it. Thank you and good night.

But I can’t end there. I can’t end without saying one more thing: Building and managing is really hard. Its not hard because we lack the skills. Its hard because its hard. It would be easier to be a housing advocate - housing is a human right - or to be a developer – it pencils or it doesn’t. But we are in the middle. Blue Door is in the middle. Housing is a human right so the building has to pencil. We have to solve that problem. To make this work, we need the discipline of the private sector, its tenacity, strong decision making and ability to execute. AND we need the care and understanding that exists in Community Housing -  in each of you.

I have worked with the team here for a number of years and I know Blue Door has the skills, the connections to local government, and the partners to ensure that Blue Door is a part of this change, and contributes to the creation and retention of affordable homes in York Region for many years to come".