Requirements related to capital projects

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Requirement: If a community is going to invest in a capital project, the community and project sponsor must demonstrate they have done the following:

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• Linking with the province or territory: efforts should be made to link with provincial, territorial or municipal funding. It is important to provide evidence of the need to purchase, construct, or renovate facilities and to ensure that the community is best placed to undertake the capital project. This should be demonstrated through the Reaching Home Sustainability Checklist for Applicants of Capital Investment Projects. Reaching Home funds can be used to complement other capital investments made by a province, territory or municipality. However, Reaching Home funding must not duplicate or displace funding from other programs (should be used to fill a gap in these instances).

• Encouraging leveraging: where possible, communities are encouraged to ensure that Reaching Home is not the sole funder in capital projects. For capital projects consisting of new construction or purchase of facilities, the community is required to record the in-kind and financial contributions of each capital investment sub-project funded under Reaching Home.

• Ensuring sustainability: capital projects require a sustainability plan in which organizations must demonstrate their capacity to operate the facility for its intended purpose for a minimum period of up to 5 years after project completion. Applicants must identify all relevant funding sources for the operation of the facility and/or new services through their application documents. As capital projects funded under Reaching Home should lead to new or improved services after their completion, an exit strategy is unacceptable for capital projects.

• In their sustainability plan, organizations must:

  • describe their partnerships;

  • confirm their funding sources for ongoing operations;

  • report if the project will increase the level of services or if they will remain stable; and

  • include a timeline for the completion of their activities.

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Requirement: as part of the application process for a sub-project, capital project applicants must follow the Sustainability Checklist in order to demonstrate that the minimum project sustainability standards have been addressed.

• Applicants seeking capital funding under the regionally delivered funding streams (Designated Communities; Rural and Remote Homelessness; Territorial Stream and Indigenous Homelessness Stream) are required to complete the checklist as part of any proposal to create or expand a facility which could result in increased annual operational costs. The sustainability checklist can also be used to assess sustainability in capital projects that do not incur increased annual operational costs (for example, equipment purchase or renovations in a facility where no space, beds or units are added or no service is created or expanded).

• Communities are responsible to review the checklist completed by applicants through the solicitation or proposals, as part of the assessment process.

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Requirement: as Reaching Home allocations are annual, multi-year projects must be managed (expensed) on a fiscal year basis.

Requirement: applicable to organizations which own a property or have a long-term lease, capital renovation projects may be subject to monitoring for up to 5 years after the project end-date to ensure recipients are compliant with the terms of their funding agreement with Employment and Social Development Canada.

• Service Canada monitors capital investments for emerging issues and may ask for course correction as needed.

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