HOUSING SOLUTIONS
We spent years helping refugees find work. Then we learned the hard truth, a job is not a home.
THE REALIZATION
From day one, Impakt offered integrated, wrap-around support for relationship-based navigation toward dignity, belonging, and work.
The one thing we never touched was housing. It felt enormous, and we were a small organization.
So we focused on what we could do: employment. And we got people jobs. But then we watched something we couldn’t ignore.
Months after finding work, refugees were still living in the shelter. Employment, it turned out, was not enough.
WHY A JOB WASN'T ENOUGH
Even with steady income, the path to a home stayed blocked. The barriers were not about willingness, they were structural and deeply human.
Wages from new employment couldn’t keep pace with Toronto’s housing costs. A paycheque simply didn’t reach far enough to secure a place of their own.
Leaving the shelter meant leaving the only network they had built in a new country – the relationships and support that made daily life survivable.
Stepping into the unknown – a lease, a neighbourhood, a system they didn’t yet trust – carried real risks. Stability inside the shelter felt safer than taking the leap.
ADVOCACY & GLOBAL IMPACT
In 2025, we launched the Impakt Forum, a global gathering of leaders in affordable housing. It has become the core of our advocacy and the engine of our global impact: a place where the field’s most knowledgeable voices think together about what comes next.
Toronto 2025
When the Impakt Forum convened in Toronto, the conversation moved beyond ideas. The leaders in the room chose to collaborate on a real, shared solution for refugee housing in this city and the Toronto Working Group was born.
The people now building Toronto’s refugee housing solution together — across foundations, shelters, development, finance, and design.
OUR TWO-PATH APPROACH
One path stabilizes employed refugee families now. The other builds something permanent.
A practical way to secure units and quickly stabilize employed refugee clients and families — without waiting for permanent infrastructure to be built.
A purpose-built, integrated model combining affordable housing with our navigation-and-support approach designed to be Impakt’s permanent community anchor.
BUILT ON PARTNERSHIP
None of this happens alone. We work alongside the organizations carrying Toronto’s housing and refugee response.
WHERE WE'RE HEADED
It is the next evolution of it.
