Founded in 1993, Habitat for Humanity Niagara (Habitat Niagara) aims to provide affordable housing to low-income families across Niagara. It is an affiliate of Habitat for Humanity Canada and a member of the Niagara Poverty Reduction Network. Along with 1,400 Habitat affiliates around the globe, Habitat Niagara works toward a world where everyone has a safe and stable place to live.

Habitat Niagara’s main program is homeownership, but it does not report how much it spends on building homes each year. Based on its financial statements, Ci calculated Habitat Niagara’s total program spending as $2.1m in F2020.

Habitat for Humanity Niagara’s homeownership program helps low-income families buy affordable homes. The charity raises funds for land and materials to build new houses. Habitat Niagara sells its homes to eligible families with no down payment required, financed through interest-free mortgages paid over 20 years. Habitat Niagara also requires each family to contribute 500 hours of “sweat equity” by volunteering to build homes or working at Habitat ReStores. After receiving mortgage payments, the charity reinvests the money into future building projects. It estimates that the average cost of building each home is around $350,000. Since founding in 1993, Habitat Niagara states that it has built 66 homes for 72 families, including 248 children.

Aside from its homeownership program, the charity helps to fund Habitat for Humanity Canada's Global Village program. The program sends Canadian volunteers to help build homes in developing countries. As of 2018, Habitat Niagara reports that it has raised funds to build 170 homes around the world.

Habitat for Humanity Niagara is a small charity, with $174k in cash donations and $36k in donated goods in F2020. It also received $676k in mortgage payments (15% of revenues) and $450k in covid-19 government assistance (10% of revenues) during the year.

Administrative costs are 8% of revenues and fundraising costs are 30% of cash donations. This results in total overhead spending of 38%. For every dollar donated to the charity, 62 cents go to the cause. This is outside of Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending. Habitat Niagara’s fundraising ratio increased in F2020 mainly due to a 41% drop in donations rather than due to rising fundraising costs. Its fundraising costs also fell by 9% during the year.

Habitat Niagara’s funding reserves are shown as negative since its interest-bearing debts of ($2.0m) exceed its liquid assets of $1.5m. This is common for Habitat for Humanity chapters across Canada, which hold mortgages for first-time homeowners. Excluding interest-bearing debts, Habitat Niagara's gross funding reserves can cover 69% or around eight months of annual program costs.

Charity Intelligence has sent this update to Habitat for Humanity Niagara for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Created on August 4, 2021 by Eric Zhao.