The non-profit organization SOLIDES gets its hands on 363 doors in a major transaction to curb the housing crisis in Drummondville

The non-profit organization SOLIDES, based on the South Shore of Montreal, whose mission is to provide an affordable, safe, healthy and humane living environment for as many tenants as possible to fight social injustice, recently acquired 45 residential and commercial buildings in Drummondville. Many of these buildings are large units ideal for low-income families, and SOLIDES is committed to maintaining the rents of these units at an affordable price for at least 50 years.

This transaction, valued at $42.5 million and carried out without government subsidies, will help meet the growing demand for housing for low-income people with special needs and women victims of violence. With the involvement of important private partners such as New Market Funds, the Caisse d'économie solidaire Desjardins and the Fondation Lucie et André Chagnon, the business model was able to materialize. The addition of this sizeable real estate park increases the total assets held by SOLIDES to 1048 affordable housing units.

Drummondville is the city in Québec where the housing shortage is currently hitting hardest. [...] The most important thing for us is that these units have been taken out of the speculative market [...] most of the units acquired are already rented, and none of the tenants concerned will be evicted as part of this purchase. The organization will prioritize people with "average or modest" incomes to occupy the units that will be vacant in this housing stock[1]

BCF thanks SOLIDES and its financial partners for their confidence and is proud to have acted on their behalf in the realization of the transaction and the implementation of the financing with a team composed of Alexandre McGraw, Sophie Boulanger, Éric Amyot, Charles Joly, Frédéric Dorion, Eleonora Eusepi, Vanessa Gendron and Marianne Tardif (Business Law/Real Estate Law), Valérie Allard (Labour and Employment Law), Marc-André Godard and Jean-François Reed (Taxation), Chantal Mongrain, Julie Tremblay and Caroline Fortier (Corporate Services).

To read the La Presse article (in French only), click here.

To read the article in Le Devoir (in French only), click here.

[1] Source: Journal Le Devoir, March 2023