Go Big or Go Home: The Rebirth of Cahdco

“You can’t cross a chasm in two hops.” I’ve seen that quote attributed to a few people. It’s posted on the cork board above my desk. It’s a good reminder for mission-driven organizations like CCOC and our sister corporation Cahdco: there’s a big need out there and we aren’t going to get anywhere with small measures.

CCOC created Cahdco in 1996 to create affordable housing and provide development consulting services to non-profit organizations.

Despite a long drought with no government investment in new housing, CCOC and Cahdco preserved a rare specialized knowledge of affordable housing development for two decades and succeeded in adding more than 200 units to Ottawa’s housing stock.

Today, the need for more affordable housing is broad and overwhelming. There’s an acute need for supportive housing, a general shortage of social housing, a drastic undersupply of any kind of decent affordable rental housing and a big demand for more affordable homeownership.

So how did we respond? We decided to “go big or go home”.

Up until this year, the work of Cahdco was done by one individual supported by CCOC’s back office and a small board with lots of expertise. Over the past year we have built up the Cahdco team to six regulars: a dedicated crew of experienced, intelligent and committed professionals. We’ve added numbers and bench strength to the board, and reaffirmed the relationship to CCOC with a designated board seat.

At this size we can take on more projects, expanding our impact and helping a greater number of client agencies achieve their goals to build more housing.  Housing of all types.

And with a larger capacity comes the opportunity pursue other elements of our mission.

We are actively looking to initiate our second affordable home ownership project, under a new model that we hope will build assets both for homeowners and for the community.

There’s a lot of work to do, and we’re already started. CCOC is proud to continue its relationship with the revitalized Cahdco.