The Saint John Community Loan Fund has expanded and rebranded.
It’s now known as Kaléidoscope Social Impact and will serve the entire province as it works to become a lender for the acquisition and construction of affordable housing.
General manager and co-founder Seth Asimakos said this process has been underway for quite a while.
“Kaléidoscope is a great name because it speaks to the diversity of the work that we do and also the diversity of the ideas and projects we get behind and the communities we hope to have an impact in,” Asimakos said.
He said the goal is to build from the $1.5 million they have now to $10 million, adding they need businesses to know this is a good place to “park money” and see it work in their communities.
Kaléidoscope Social Impact has three projects underway in St. Stephen and Miramichi which will have 40 to 60 units.
“One is completely affordable, another one is a split market and affordable and one is commercial and affordable apartments,” Asimakos said.
He said there a different issues in different parts of the province when it comes to affordable housing and they hope to be part of the solution.
“There are a lot of organizations like the Land Bank, cities doing plans to address this issue, [the Department of] Social Department is increasing their subsidy so there is a lot happening but we need a lot of resources in order to actually increase the number of units available for people. There’s at least 5,000 units needed in New Brunswick. $10-million for us is the first step. We know we are going to have to keep raising capital in order to leverage builds,” Asimakos said.
