Founded in 1993, Habitat for Humanity Regina (Habitat Regina) helps to provide low-income families with affordable housing. Habitat Regina is one of 1,400 Habitat for Humanity affiliates globally that work toward a world where everyone has a safe and stable place to live. Most of the charity’s activities are in Regina, but it also supports local chapters in Moose Jaw, Weyburn, and Estevan.

Recent News: In February 2021, Habitat Regina merged with Habitat Saskatoon and Habitat Prince Albert to become Habitat for Humanity Saskatchewan. Habitat Saskatchewan has not yet posted annual reports or audited financial statements. Ci will complete a full update for the merged charity after F2021.

Habitat Regina’s main program is homeownership. In F2019, it spent $3.5m on building operations and home sales, as well as $466k on other program-related costs.

Habitat for Humanity Regina’s homeownership program helps low-income families buy affordable homes. The charity raises funds for land and materials to build new houses. Habitat Regina sells its homes to eligible families with no down payment required, financed through interest-free mortgages paid over 20 years. To keep homes affordable, Habitat Regina caps these mortgage payments at 25% of annual household income. The charity also requires each family to contribute 500 hours of “sweat equity” by volunteering to build homes or working at Habitat ReStores. Habitat Regina receives mortgage payments through a revolving fund used to finance future building projects. In 2018, the charity reported that it helped 17 families become new homeowners. Since founding in 1993, Habitat Regina states that it has reached a total of 139 families.

As part of its building projects, Habitat Regina runs the Trades & Skills Construction Apprenticeship Program (TASCAP). The program gives grade 11 and 12 students the opportunity to earn credits by working at a Habitat Regina build site for a semester. In 2018, the charity had 27 students enrolled in TASCAP.

Habitat Regina has not posted new financial statements since F2019 and did not respond to Charity Intelligence’s requests for information. As a result, Ci has scored Habitat Regina as a zero in financial transparency. The financial analysis below refers to F2019.

Habitat for Humanity Regina is a small charity, with $610k in cash donations and $96k in donated goods in F2019. It also received $688k in mortgage payments (31% of revenues) and $514k in government grants (23% of revenues) during the year. Administrative costs are 40% of revenues and fundraising costs are 46% of cash donations. This results in total overhead spending of 86%. For every dollar donated to the charity, 14 cents go to the cause. This is outside of Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending, which has been the case for the past three years.

Habitat Regina’s funding reserves are shown as negative since its interest-bearing debts of ($5.5m) exceed its cash of $277k. This is common for Habitat for Humanity chapters across Canada, which hold mortgages for first-time homeowners. Excluding interest-bearing debts, Habitat Regina’s gross funding reserves can cover 7% or less than one month of annual program costs.

Habitat Regina receives loans from Canadian Western Bank, which include restrictions on the charity’s annual debt to net worth ratio. Its auditors state that the charity was not in compliance with these bank covenants at year end in F2019. This was due to the addition of new non-interest-bearing loans of $2.2m from Saskatchewan Housing Corporation during the year. After year end, Habitat Regina’s bank agreed to modify its debt ratio calculation to exclude these loans, resulting in the charity complying with its bank covenants.

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

Updated on August 4, 2021 by Eric Zhao.