The Vancouver-based firm raised a C$75 million ($54 million) first close for a fund to finance housing and commercial development on Indigenous lands across Canada. The fund is backed by Royal Bank of Canada, the country’s largest bank with more than C$2 trillion in assets, as well as the Victoria Foundation.
The Vancouver-based firm, founded by brothers Michael and Andrew Hungerford, both of Gwich’in ancestry, is targeting C$300 million ($214 million). The fund will finance housing, mixed-use, and light industrial projects on Indigenous and adjacent lands in major Canadian cities.
Development and asset management will be provided by Hungerford Properties, the brothers’ established real estate firm. Federal loan guarantee programs typically used by Indigenous developers don’t kick in until late in a project’s life; Seven Generations will provide equity capital during the earliest stages of development. “Impact in real estate development requires an alignment of values,” said Hungerford.
Return on inclusion
People in First Nations communities are four times more likely to live in crowded housing and six times more likely to live in housing needing major repairs than non-Indigenous Canadians. Closing that gap requires 55,320 new units and repairs to 80,650 existing ones, at an estimated cost of C$44 billion, according to the Assembly of First Nations.
“Fostering opportunities for collaboration between Indigenous communities and Indigenous private capital funds can help drive solutions forward and build thriving economies,” said RBC’s Brittanee Laverdure, who leads the bank’s Indigenous banking and reconciliation group, RBC Origins.
The brothers built Hungerford Properties over two decades before publicly embracing their Gwich’in heritage, which they kept private in an industry where bias ran deep. The fund’s first project is the səkʷíw townhome development, a joint venture with Westbank First Nation’s Ntityix Development Corporation in Kelowna, where nearly all construction and procurement is sourced from Indigenous-owned firms. Seven Generations expects to back 10 to 15 projects representing thousands of new housing units.
