• We invest in housing, but more importantly, we invest in people.

• We develop and deliver workforce training. Using our projects as “living labs,” we provide free training in green construction practices, creating educational and economic opportunities for existing workers and those who would like to enter the trades. 

• Our workforce training is focused on people with barriers to employment, such as low education attainment, and an interest in construction careers. In this way, we are seeding the construction workforce with individuals who not only have the skills to work a construction career, but who have learned how they can have an impact on climate change through the way they build.

• We work with stakeholders and local organizations to find suitable building sites, which we then purchase or obtain through grants or community development programs.

• As the developer, we hire contractors to build the homes.

• We use a third party to test and commission each home, and to certify it as a Boreal Development home. 

• As a nonprofit community development organization, we use subsidies to reduce the sale price of a Boreal Development home to income qualified buyers.

• We also build and sell homes to buyers whose income does not qualify them for a subsidy. 

• We raise funds from charitable foundations and other donors to support our work, including contributing to a subsidy fund to assist income-qualified buyers.

Our first projects are single family homes. We intend to expand the designs and construction of Boreal Development homes to include accessory dwellings (ADUs), multi-family residences and higher-density clustered housing developments, as all of these housing types are needed if we are to truly transform our community approach to housing. 

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