Why N.S. could be losing some of the affordable housing it's funded

Each day, Darren Surette sits down at a table in his living room and learns something new.

He's creating a podcast, enrolled in an entrepreneurship program, and working toward starting a small business. He credits his cozy one-bedroom apartment in Dartmouth, which he rents for $600 a month.

"This place basically saved my life," he says.

Earlier this year, Surette moved into one of 10 units at Affirmative House, a supportive housing building run by a non-profit organization supporting people dealing with a disability or mental health diagnosis. 

"When I was looking for a place, I was two weeks [with] no fixed address, and then I had another two weeks that I stayed with my mom," he says. "I was totally out of options and I didn't know where to go." 

Surette's home was built using funds from all three levels of government, including a provincial loan program known as the Affordable Housing Development Program (AHDP). 

The program is key to the province's efforts to encourage affordable housing construction. But some in the housing field are concerned it hasn't created enough new units, and some of the units already built could lose their affordable status over time.

That would make a critical difference for many in Surette's situation.

John Lohr, Nova Scotia's minister of municipal affairs and housing, says AHDP has been an "extraordinarily important program to encourage new units to be built." 

Lohr's department provided CBC News with a list of all the new units it's contributed to over the life of the program, which dates back to 2007. 

In total, 2,710 units had been funded as of September. Of those, 1,965 were considered "affordable units," which have to cost tenants no more than 80 per cent of the average market rent. In Halifax, average market rent for a two-bedroom unit has risen to $1,449, the CMHC said in January.

The program has cost approximately $84.2 million since its launch, with roughly half of the units being committed in the last five years alone.

The units are all over the province. Some are new construction, while others are old commercial buildings, hotels or schools that have been converted to permanent homes. Some were built by for-profit companies and others by non-profit organizations. 

To date, 1,216 of the affordable units are in buildings with 15-year loan agreements. That means the Nova Scotia government has agreed to provide a forgivable loan to the developer, and in return the developer has said it will keep a certain number of units affordable for the length of the agreement.