Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Aboriginal Peoples
Issue 6 - Evidence - May 3, 2016
OTTAWA, Tuesday, May 3, 2016
The Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples met this day at 9:35 a.m. to study best practices and on- going challenges relating to housing in First Nation and Inuit communities in Nunavut, Nunavik, Nunatsiavut and the Northwest Territories.
Senator Lillian Eva Dyck (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good morning. I would like to welcome all honourable senators and members of the public who are watching this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples either here in the room, via CPAC or on the web. My name is Lillian Dyck, from Saskatchewan. I have the honour and privilege of chairing the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples.
I now invite my fellow senators to introduce themselves, starting on my left with Senator Watt.
Senator Watt: Charlie Watt, Nunavik.
Senator Tobias Enverga: Tobias Enverga, Ontario.
Senator Beyak: Lynn Beyak, Ontario.
Senator Patterson: Dennis Patterson, Nunavut.
Senator Raine: Nancy Greene Raine, British Columbia.
The Chair: The mandate of this committee is to examine legislation and matters relating to the Aboriginal peoples of Canada generally. This morning, we are continuing to hear testimony on our Northern housing study, with a mandate to study best practices and ongoing challenges relating to housing in First Nation and Inuit communities in Nunavut, Nunavik, Nunatsiavut and Northwest Territories.
For our first witness, we have from EVOQ Architecture, Mr. Alain Fournier, architect and director. Mr. Fournier, we will hear your opening remarks and then we will have questions from senators. You may proceed, please, Mr. Fournier.
Alain Fournier, architect, director, EVOQ Architecture:
[Editor's Note: Mr. Fournier spoke in Inuktitut and Dene.]
Good morning. I thank the honourable members of the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples for inviting me to share my experiences and stories from the housing front lines in the Inuit Nunangat and Northwest Territories.
EVOQ Architecture, formerly FGMDA, Architects, is one of Canada's leading architectural firms. For more than 30 years, we've been recognized for our work with Inuit and First Nations and in heritage conservation. Our approach is collaborative, working closely with each client and community to realize their vision.
Our architects also lecture at universities, participate in design review panels and lead various organizations. We've received numerous awards for our work, and our portfolio includes a number of high profile buildings, including the West Block, Parliament Hill, in Ottawa; Union Station in Toronto; the Canadian High Arctic Research Station in Ikaluktutiak, Cambridge Bay in Nunavut; and the Kuujjuaq Air Terminal in Nunavik. Based in Montreal, EVOQ has over 19 employees and a network of specialized consultants across the country.
The documents that I've handed out to you in the folder are reference material. Two booklets illustrate our firm's architectural work in both heritage conservation and with Inuit and First Nations. The third document is a presentation I gave only a few weeks ago, during Aboriginal Caucus Day on the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association's National Congress on Housing and Homelessness. It contains an overview of two of our most recent housing pilot projects, one in Nunavik and the other in Nunatsiavut. I would say they are examples of some of the best research and development work that has been going on recently.
I head the firm's team of architects working with Inuit and First Nations. My first contact with Inuit was in 1970 in Frobisher Bay, now Iqaluit. Since 1983, I have accumulated over 30 years of experience working as an architectural consultant with Inuit and First Nations. I have worked in the Canadian North's Inuit Nunangat territories, Nunavik, Nunavut, and Nunatsiavut, and also with the Cree of Eeyou Istchee, the Mi'kmaq, Innu, and the Haudenosaunee.
My team has designed over 300 buildings of all types in collaboration with Inuit and First Nations. Over the last 15 years, we've been involved in the design and construction of more than a dozen housing models spread over 18 Inuit and First Nations communities across Canada, stretching from Waswanipi all the way up to Ikaluktutiak. These models, until now, have been replicated close to 500 times.
I regularly give lectures to architectural students and my architectural colleagues in Canada and abroad on the subject of management, design and construction of architectural projects with Inuit and First Nations. In a few weeks, I will be speaking at the Arctic Energy and Emerging Technologies Conference and Tradeshow in Inuvik. The session's topic will be planning, building and upgrading design for energy conservation in the Arctic. Soon we'll start to be involved with the Treaty 8 group of First Nations to assist them in developing an approach to taking charge of their Tse'K'wa sacred site. Our team continues to consistently advocate for the development and empowerment of Canada's indigenous peoples through their built environment.
Now I will give you a short overview of ongoing challenges as I see and have experienced them in Inuit and Northern First Nation communities. These observations are also what I call "stories from the trenches.'' Listing them out: Of course, high cost of construction, characteristic of work there; transportation materials, manpower, lack of road accesses, need to supply room and board for construction crews; lack of specialized local labour and equipment; high cost of operations and maintenance; of course, high cost of fuel; no hydro power, no green power; lack of specialized maintenance personnel; overpopulated houses or overused and, of course, abused; materials and equipment are not sufficiently heavy-duty; low energy efficiency, characteristic of most housing; mostly social housing, very little homeownership, no real estate market — there are exceptions, such as Iqaluit — lack of literature on Inuit and First Nations housing. Review has shown that very little relevant information is available. That means very little serious research has been going on; small housing market, which means little or no industry research and development. There's little industry interest in research and development to develop and improve materials and systems tailored to the northern housing market.
My last remarks have to do with best housing practices, and this is how we can move forward to more sustainable housing, in the broadest sense of what "sustainable'' means. This is not just all about better bells and whistles. Here are a few thoughts and recommendations that we can discuss later on: An important principle, one size does not fit all; the need to design culturally adapted housing through dialogue; build local construction capacity; improve energy efficiency; reduce dependency on costly fossil fuel energy; reduce maintenance costs; support research for innovation; share case studies of both successful and unsuccessful projects; and, finally, supply proper funding.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you for that presentation. It was very clear.
Our committee has just returned from a trip up North, and we were able to visit a number of communities and see housing right on the land. One of the things that became clear was that the cost of operation and maintenance of most homes is astronomically high, several thousand dollars per month. In the houses that you're designing that are better built and more energy efficient, do you know what the costs are to operate and maintain one of your designed homes?
Mr. Fournier: I will talk about two examples. One has been very recently built, finished in February. That is the pilot house in Quaqtaq, Nunavik. There are unfortunately no figures available for that for the moment.
On the topic of pilot houses and how important it is to go through designing pilot houses and then actually monitoring them, in this particular pilot house, they will be monitoring 17 different variables, going from the standard energy consumption, as in fuel consumption, but also it will go to how often they use the dryer, how often doors and windows are opened because, as you may be aware, we can design the best energy-efficient house, but if the doors and windows are open half the time, we've gained nothing and we don't know what's going on.
This is the highest level of monitoring a pilot house I'm aware of. I would say in a year, I personally may not have that information, but the group, that is, the Kativik Municipal Housing Bureau, Société d'habitation du Québec, and perhaps the Kativik regional government, who were the stakeholders on this pilot project, hopefully would be able to give you those figures.
Senator Patterson: I am very pleased we have Mr. Fournier before us. Welcome.
I'd like to ask you about one issue that came up in our recent tour, and that is about single-family dwellings versus multiplexes. I see you've designed a six-plex in Nunatsiavut and smaller two-plexes in Nunavik. If we're looking at maximizing the value for dollars, is it true that we must look at multiplexes in northern communities and that the single-family dwelling is inefficient and more expensive?
Mr. Fournier: Northern communities come in different sizes. The smaller ones are perhaps not necessarily ready for that, but certainly the larger ones are ready, and it's as a result of their readiness and willingness to get involved into multiplex housing that we have been involved in designing them. We've designed four-plexes, tri-plexes, duplexes. The most recent one is the six-plex you mentioned in Nain. What's interesting and important is that all these requests come from the ground up.
We have to be aware that people have traditionally lived in single-family homes or single-family shelters or extended-family shelters. Now they're asked to move or they are thinking about having to move into multiplexes. This is something the communities have to realizing. The pilot project in Nunatsiavut was an exercise in just that, and it was quite admirable how the community decided this was the way forward not just for higher density and lower maintenance costs — in terms of construction costs, it's not much less expensive, but certainly in terms of maintenance costs, if we're talking strictly about heating, it's not as expensive — but they also saw that as an answer to the housing crisis. Following our first consultation and series of dialogues with them, we submitted a four-plex and a six-plex, and they opted for the six-plex, precisely for that reason. In fact, this particular six-plex is aimed towards a particular group, because that's also something that we found in our discussions. This will be aimed towards elders and the youth. Both, for different reasons, are the ones that suffer the most from the housing shortage.
Yes, it's something that, from experience, I have seen communities, certainly the larger ones, realizing as time goes by that this is something that has to be explored; but given this is new in the fabric of the communities, it's something that they have to buy into and that we have to discuss with them through dialogue and what we call design charrettes.
Senator Patterson: One of the other things that struck me on our tour is this whole issue of air exchange and HVAC systems. I think the impression that we got was that many of those systems were overloaded when there was overcrowding: they just couldn't handle the amount of vapour created by larger numbers of people in houses than they might have been designed for. We saw clear examples of condensation in houses leading to mold, where the system seemed to be overloaded, to my untrained eye, and it seemed that some of these systems were destined for failure. At times they might have been turned off because of the cost of power.
I wonder if you have had some experience that could assist the committee in looking at this. I know it's a highly technical issue. Could you shed some light on that?
Mr. Fournier: Yes. They are called heat recovery ventilators, or HRV, and they are actually a fairly recent add-on to houses. They are an add-on to the construction code, which requires that they be installed because the houses that are built are more airtight. In the "good old days'' there was so much air coming through the walls, all over the place, that you didn't need an air exchanger because the fresh air just came in.
Now, because the houses are built so tightly, you need an HRV, but there are a number of issues around HRVs, and I've personally seen them fail and I've seen them stop being used. If you don't clean the filters on a regular basis, they actually create a worse condition, because it turns into a factory for breeding bugs.
However, there is also the overuse, of course. In my initial statement, I talked about "overcrowded, overused and abused.'' If a house is designed for four but seven or eight are living in it, it will be extraordinarily overused and abused. That is, all systems and not just the HRV: the shower, plumbing, the floors and the kitchen cabinets — everything is overused. Clearly, that's an issue of overcrowding and overuse.
HRVs are, as I said, a recent technology, so there's certainly a lot of education to be done around how they must be used. I've had the same experience as you have, in visiting homes and seeing the guts of HRVs opened up in the mechanical rooms and the unchanged filters sprawled in the same room. However, as I said, going back, it is a code- related requirement because the houses are very airtight.
I also mentioned that the market is so small that there's no appetite on the part of the industry to develop HRVs that would be adapted to the Arctic. That is an issue. This is where, again, there has to be support for innovation, because it won't come from the industry unless there's a market.
Senator Patterson: Is there a way of getting, as you say, a HRV system designed for the Arctic? Do you have any suggestions? Is that the National Research Council's proper mandate?
Mr. Fournier: It certainly would be a good start.
Senator Enverga: Thank you for your presentation, sir. On our travels, we went to places where there's been an effect from climate change. In some areas, the permafrost is melting. Have you taken this into account in your designs?
Mr. Fournier: Yes, we have. Just to tell another story, I've attended various conferences to talk to and ask questions of permafrost specialists. If we're talking about construction, permafrost is what we used to say that we could trust as much as bedrock. Although it's still pretty steady, we can no longer trust permafrost as if it were bedrock.
We have changed our focus to no longer rely on permafrost being so stable. Instead, one thing we look for is true bedrock, either at the surface or bedrock that's not too deep and is beyond the permafrost. We've done that.
We're also using pile systems that are drilled into the permafrost deeply enough that if there is a variation or a thaw — if the top layer of the permafrost thaws — it won't affect the foundations.
I have to say that when I ask questions of the scientific minds who know much more about permafrost than I do, they sort of shrug their shoulders and say, "Well, we don't know.'' They don't know where it's going to go, so given the lack of information and that we can't build buildings on that shrugging of shoulders, the strategy is now to try and find bedrock wherever it happens to be. If permafrost is the only thing that's there, then let's drill into it very deeply.
Senator Enverga: You mentioned, based on your discussions with the experts, scientists and those who seem to know more about permafrost, that even they don't really know. From your view, how widespread is this? How much thawing of the permafrost is happening? Is this really a big problem for our communities?
Mr. Fournier: All I can say is what I and many others have observed, and that is that in some communities it's an issue. It has already become an issue for certain air strips. It has become a clear issue and now they have to monitor the permafrost to see where it's going. As I said, it was trustworthy, but it's no longer trustworthy, so they are monitoring that.
Not to go into details, but there are different temperatures and types of permafrost, and in the frozen land, of course, there are different qualities of soil that actually are considered permafrost.
So, yes, there are clear effects in some cases where, as I said, infrastructures such as air strips have been affected. That is something that we wouldn't have seen about 10 years ago but now we are starting to witness that. I have not seen or heard of a major building having issues with melting permafrost and with the ensuing issues of foundation destabilization, but that doesn't mean it's not there.
Senator Watt: Thank you for your presentation. Since you mentioned that you did most of the architectural work, and I guess the engineering that goes with it, with regards to the housing needs of northern communities, is your group looking into a long-range plan regarding what might be happening and the effect that we are now seeing with climate change? You talked about permafrost, but it is really nothing to speak of right now. It's not reliable anymore and some communities are starting to be affected, especially up around the Salluit and Wakeham Bay areas where the soil is starting to erode away.
Are you involved in the possibility of taking it to a higher ground, with a solid base like bedrock and things of that nature, rather than putting the house on soil that's about to erode away from the sides of hills? I'm just wondering whether you are also involved in long-term planning.
Mr. Fournier: We have been involved, in fact, in a way, in Nunatsiavut and Nunavik as well, in making suggestions and recommendations. I'll start with Nunatsiavut.
When we were involved with the design of the pilot six-plex, we first made a tour, as you did, of housing in Makkovik and Nain to see what the situation was like as regards everything: foundation systems, foundations, insulation, energy efficiency, et cetera. Something that we did notice is there were a number of issues with foundations, bad foundation systems but also lack of understanding of the soil conditions. When we talk about soil conditions, that's when we, of course, come back to presence of permafrost. We suggested that the communities in Nunatsiavut actually map each and every one of their communities as to the soil conditions for the presence or not of permafrost.
Nain, like Kuujjuaq, is a community where there is discontinuous permafrost, so there are zones where there is permafrost and zones where there is no permafrost. In Nain, they specifically have some very bad soil in addition. Up until then, they had been making planning decisions. Their planners had simply been taking, if you want, the town of Nain and just extending roads straight down here and straight down there, without taking into consideration what type of soil was down that new road.
Following the recommendation of our team of architects and engineers, they have started mapping the soil conditions throughout their communities. They've been doing that in Nunavik as well, and you're very familiar with what happened in Salluit when one of their new housing developments slid down and they had to move it. As a result of that, they started also mapping each and every community in Nunavik, and that's the Centre d'études nordiques, Laval University, and they actually now have a permanent research station in Salluit. They are thinking of building a permanent station in Kangiqsujuaq and so on. This is where planners and the sciences will come together to map out these communities and determine the build zones and no-build zones.
In addition to that, the duplex pilot house that we've worked on and is just completed in Quaqtaq is a good example of, in this particular case, Nunavik grappling with the idea of climate change and more secure foundations. After decades of thinking about it, they decided to try pile foundations that are in fairly common use in Nunavut but not in Nunavik. The pilot house in Quaqtaq is actually built on piles. In this particular case, piles are simply driven into bedrock. They're extremely solid. But the idea of this was to give them experience so that in this case Kautaq, Makivik's construction company, could develop some experience with pile driving and, with this particular pilot project, will most likely give information to other builders for future projects in Nunavik.
Senator Watt: In a sense, what I'm hearing from you is that there might be a better chance of long-term planning rather than just short-term planning. I do feel to a certain extent that it's still short-term planning on a crisis-to-crisis basis, especially when they decide to select a certain area where they're going to do some building and don't seem to take into consideration what's underneath and the possibility of the buildings being impacted not only by climate change but also the change from season to season, for example. They have a tendency to lay out their plan on the site itself, not taking into consideration what might be underneath that will have a long-term effect on those houses. I still see that today, regardless of how well the work is being carried out. I think there is a big learning curve that will still have to take place.
On top of that, there's one issue that really sticks out in my mind: Why do you put a septic tank in between the two floors? When I say "two floors,'' I'm talking about the top surface and the bottom piece. With septic tanks being put in not completely underneath the building but as part of the building, sandwiched by two-by-fours with plywood on top and plywood underneath, it's unknown how thick that might be on the top layer and how thick that might be underneath. Nevertheless, that is the quickest way of ruining the buildings in the first year, never mind the second year, because the septic tanks, when they're in between the floors, tend to sweat quite a lot in wintertime and also in the summertime, so the buildings deteriorate very quickly.
I'm wondering why that technology is still being used today, knowing very well that it is the biggest problem that we have. It doesn't matter where we go, whether it's Nunavik, Nunavut or Nunatsiavut or N.W.T., it's a big problem. As an engineer, I think you should point that out to correct that one quickly, because you'll be losing the houses no more than five years from now, and the ones you're already building. I thought I would make that point. Thank you.
Mr. Fournier: I'll start with your first observation. Of course, information is gathered as far as the quality of building zones in the various communities, but then it becomes a matter of governance and who makes the decisions to build where. It's not as simple as that.
As far as septic tanks, what's being done in the case of the houses that we've designed is that actually that space where the septic tank is located is ventilated. You're right; in the past it wasn't. It actually led to septic tanks freezing and to all kinds of problems. Now the septic tank is actually considered, in terms of air exchange and heat, to be part of the house, if you want, so there is some ventilation and heat in there that would prevent the problems that you've rightly described.
Senator Raine: It's great to have you here because we're not architects and experts, but we saw clearly that over the years the models of houses have changed, and they have always, I would suggest, been designed for four to six people to eight people perhaps, and they're housing at least double that, on average. At some point, we've now gone to an airtight house, which requires an HRV system, as you explained. You said that the code mandates the house be airtight. If we know that the HRV system will not keep up with the number of people in the house, we're designing a house that's going to fail. Sometimes I think that maybe it isn't the right thing to design an airtight house when you know it's going to be overcrowded. Is there a way to design a house that breathes based on the number of people in the house?
Mr. Fournier: Yes, of course. But the funding is not there. When the housing program is set out, let's say 50 houses will be built, and there will be 50 four-bedroom houses or three-bedroom houses. Again, we're going back to the housing shortage. Because of the shortage, everybody knows that these houses will be overcrowded, most likely — not all of them, not systematically, but they may be overcrowded from day one. Everybody knows these houses, once they're built, will be overcrowded, which means it's not just the HRV that will suffer; it's everything else in the building that will suffer.
HRVs, yes, are a particular issue that's recently been added to houses because we want them to be more energy efficient, and energy efficiency goes by way of air tightness. If we don't add HRVs, then people will suffocate. It will just make things worse.
We are faced with certainly an important issue. Solutions are in funding, in governance and in education. There has to be a holistic approach to this. There's no quick fix, apart from what residents do, which is turn them off and open the windows. That's what they've been doing, and that's common sense.
Senator Raine: So if we know that they're going to turn off the HRV system and open the window, I guess I can't wrap my head around the thought that maybe we're going forward in the wrong direction. Maybe we should go back to making them very simple. I remember a gentleman who said, "We used to have air movement. We lived in houses with chimneys for ventilation. When we moved into units, there was no air movement, and making holes is common sense. We knew that as a community.'' They have put in what they call Eskimo holes, which allows the house to vent outwards higher up in the walls. We could see, where they had retrofitted, there was a lot less dampness on the walls than where they hadn't.
Where does the code say it has to be air tight? Where did that code come from?
Mr. Fournier: That's the National Building Code of Canada.
Senator Raine: Is that designed for minus 40?
Mr. Fournier: In theory, yes. The HRV will function if it's properly maintained and if you have the appropriate number of people living in the home. They do function. As I said, it would be wise to have some design specifically for Arctic conditions that would work better. Maybe there's an avenue there that would allow better adaptation to the conditions.
I'm not a fan of new technology for technology's sake. I understand and I've had these issues with the HRVs, but it keeps coming back to it being code. The engineers tell us this is a code obligation and they cannot get around it, but we know what may happen with them if push comes to shove.
There's not just a quick fix. There are many solutions to this, and I don't think ultimately that it's something that we should ignore simply because right now we can't get it to work. I think there are a number of things that have to come together to allow it to work so that everybody has fresh air — I think that's a right to have fresh air in your house — and to have — and this expression was coined in Nunatsiavut — a house with affordable warmth, because that's also the issue.
It's fine and well to open windows and doors and get that fresh air in, but then we have the other problem, the other issue of very expensive homes to heat, and then the money we don't save in the operations and maintenance can't be used for capital cost for building more houses. There's a balance there, and I'm not the one making those decisions.
Senator Raine: You mentioned the operation and maintenance, and obviously it has to be part of the design. We heard that forced air systems were previously used, and now they're using boilers and it's new technology. The staff aren't trained. They're having some troubles with them, some problems. It's not like you can go down to a hardware store and get the parts, because they're not there. The forced air systems required very little maintenance and there was a lot less mould because the air was moving. That's just a comment on the forced air type heating system versus the boiler system.
Mr. Fournier: Again, it's a matter of adaptation. I know that there are pros and cons. The forced air does need maintenance because it's a whole series of ducts, and ducts get dirty and then there's a buildup of bacteria and whatnot. The rule of thumb is forced air is best when you have a single family house or perhaps smaller duplexes. Water and glycol heating for larger buildings will perhaps give you a more comfortable source of heating, but that is combined. I have to say that even forced air heating now has to be combined with an HRV system as well.
The pilot house, the duplex, is actually hot water and glycol with a boiler, and this is why it's called a pilot house. Let's see how the residents live in those houses, and even as part of this study they will also be assessed as far as their wellness and well-being, which goes beyond just the technical. They will be covering all of the bases there.
You are raising a number of issues. This is why pilot houses are important, because this is where we apply, try to see what can work, and not just technically but also how the residents will adapt to these and how they will work with these.
Senator Beyak: Thank you very much for the excellent materials you've provided, Mr. Fournier, and for your long experience on this issue. It's much appreciated.
Many of our witnesses have told us how much more it costs to build in the North. I live in Dryden, and I'm always surprised how much more it is just with my southern family and friends. Nunavut and Nunavik are obviously much higher.
Would you be able to explain for all the Canadians who watch these broadcasts at home why those costs are so much higher and any recommendations you might have to lower them?
Mr. Fournier: Yes, the costs are hugely much more than the average building or house in Canada. First off, Nunatsiavut has a longer shipping season, but essentially materials have to be shipped up every summer. There are no roads. There's no road access from the south to Nunavik or to Nunavut. There's that cost, shipping all of your materials on the sealift. Costs vary from community to community. In some communities, the costs are a little lower because there are more ships; others are higher because there are fewer ships.
You also have to transport all of your manpower. All of your construction personnel, of course, has to travel by plane, and anybody who has bought a ticket to go up to Nunavik or Nunavut knows that it's extraordinarily expensive. These people not only have to be transported, but then you have to feed them, room and board. So it's room and board for the duration of the contract or the project.
You can almost have a full — depending on the size of the building — 30 to 40 per cent, sometimes more, of the construction cost that is allocated strictly to all of these things that have nothing to do with the actual construction. Add to that, of course, because we're talking about a short shipping season, that, when it's private contractors, there is a risk associated with that. If I forget something, then I'll have to bring it by air cargo. There is, of course, a higher risk. So those are added to the construction.
There's the lack of local capacity in terms of manpower and in terms of services such as construction camps. I've talked about room and board. There are no construction camps in most communities. They have to bring their own construction camps or build their own construction camps, so there's a cost there.
Equipment is the same thing. Heavy equipment. Sometimes communities have equipment; sometimes they don't, and then contractors have to bring their own equipment. Again, it adds to the cost.
All of these things are a good reason, and, of course, the construction season is much shorter. Perhaps the first ship will come in at the end of July, and winter will start creeping in, depending on where you are in the Arctic, as soon as October. So, first thing you know, you're in winter conditions, and you're even in blizzard conditions sometimes. That reduces the efficiency of your construction personnel working in cold conditions. There may be some days off because of bad weather. All of these add up to why construction costs are higher.
Senator Beyak: It doesn't sound like there's much we can do about any of those issues.
Mr. Fournier: I had a thought. I mentioned construction camps and heavy equipment. Perhaps it would be interesting if, in these communities, they had this construction infrastructure and equipment so that contractors would not have to ship it up every year all the time when there is a project. I would maybe include warehouses and workshops, such that they could be used by the contractors, and perhaps we could even go as far as getting some components fabricated during the winter months, which would give work to the local labour. You could perhaps prefabricate cabinet work. You could prefabricate some wall components in these installations. That, in my mind, might help to reduce the costs, the contractors not having to start over again every year with bringing up a new camp or equipment.
Senator Enverga: Just a quick question: When we went on our trip up North, we heard that a lot of the houses have only one door. Have you discussed that with your designers? Have you addressed that at all?
Mr. Fournier: We have, finally. I'm saying that because, in the pilot duplex again, referring to that one in Nunavik — and you'll see it in the handout — we sat down and there was a design charrette, and people were consulted. That was one of the things that they have kept asking for. They've been asking for decades now, but it was never delivered.
The code keeps coming back. The code does not require, given the size of the homes, a second exit. But, in this particular case, the Inuit, the Nunavummiut, wanted this second exit just in case. It made them feel safer. As well, it could serve a double function; they would also use it in their short summer to perhaps to put a barbecue on. Yes, it has been addressed, I'm happy to say, in this particular pilot house. Hopefully, it will prove to be acceptable and will be added to the next generation of these duplexes.
Senator Watt: Getting back to the point of how the buildings are being built, with engineers and architects and so on, what would be your recommendations to point to the areas that you have run across as an architectural person? What improvements could be made in an area that you have no control over in terms of making decisions on the building codes and whatever else the government wants you to follow on account of the fact that you want to reduce the amount of dollars you have to spend on those houses? What would be your recommendations?
It seems like the people making the decisions for the North are people who have probably never been in the North before. If I'm correct on that, you might want to indicate something along that line to see what we can do and what this committee can do. What would be your recommendations?
Mr. Fournier: The decision making is complex. Senators around this table are more aware of the governance issues than I am, but governance is definitely an issue. Where do budgets come from? A certain amount of money is allocated to build houses. The various governments are under enormous pressure to build as many houses as possible every year. We're in a state of emergency. We have to build as many houses as possible in the hopes of reducing the never-ending waiting lists.
In this context, people are managing the housing crisis, and there are a number of government levels, of course. From the time it goes from the federal to provincial, and, eventually, Nunavik, their objectives and conditions have been set out. I understand they're trying to achieve a balance of quality of houses versus number of houses.
If I were to recommend something, it's that we should continue designing pilot houses. It so happens that I've come here with two very recent pilot houses. They are the ones that will give architects, engineers, residents and people in charge of building these houses and allocating funds a real sense of, "This is what's right to do, and this is what we need to do.'' Otherwise, the discussions remain very theoretical. With these pilot houses, this is real. We'll get feedback from them. They're monitored.
My recommendation would be to allocate money specifically for those particular projects, not as a general pot where the temptation is to say, "We'll take that money and just build another house,'' which I understand perfectly. If I were managing this crisis, I would not like to be the one telling the family of so-and-so that, "This year, you're not getting your house because we've spent it on something else.''
If you're going to do a pilot house, do it right, not just sort of pay lip service, "Oh, we've done a sort of pilot house.'' Have real consultation and dialogue. Don't just go once to talk to people and then never see them again. Talk to them and find out what they want. Go back to your drawing board, even though now it's a computer. Go back to them once you've drawn out your first concepts and show it to them and discuss it with them so that there will be a real buy-in, because this is also what you want. You want people to see that you've respected them in the discussions and dialogue that you had with them, that you've followed the suggestions and that they will be part of it. Of course, we're always faced with the situation of, "You can't have it all, but it's not up to us, the designers, to decide what you're not having. You will make those decisions of what it is that you will have or not have, or a little less of this or that.'' It's extremely important to go through that process.
Use the best possible technologies out there. We know the technology keeps evolving, and this is where pilot houses are important. I'm thinking it might happen in 15 years that the insulation will become more efficient per inch. One day we will have extremely energy-efficient houses that are not too expensive to build.
The duplex in Nunavik was designed trying to achieve a passive house objective. We would have had walls this thick if we had achieved it. Now we have balanced it and they are only this thick. We have to progress on all of these fronts. It has to be culturally acceptable and appropriate and people have to buy into all of the other improvements and technology.
In the Nunatsiavut pilot house, there were technological decisions and choices taken, and it was the residents that made those choices: Okay, we will adopt. We know we have HRVs. What they asked was to have an HRV for every unit rather than for the entire six-plex. Each family will want to manage. They bought into the HRVs and knew what was coming. It's important. This is part of a process.
In conclusion, I would say set some funding aside to do the pilot houses properly. This is where all these discussions can happen: Code, no code, how to adapt to the code.
Senator Raine: I appreciate the experience you have had over many years. I'm sure in your firm you have a catalogue of simple, small bungalow-type houses that have been built over the years. Looking back, would it be possible to do an analysis of which models have stood the test of time, have been the easiest to maintain and are still standing as opposed to having fallen apart? I recognize there's a big difference between design and construction, but would it be possible to look back to see what worked and didn't work and give us a review?
Mr. Fournier: I'd be the first one to be happy to find out about that. This is why they will be monitoring the experiment with this pilot house in Quaqtaq. I would love to have that feedback on what we've designed and built. I have some feedback on some of them. We've not systematically collected this feedback, but I can put somebody on that because we like to learn from our mistakes. I was saying share case studies, both successful and unsuccessful. It's equally important, if not more so, to find out what has not worked so we don't repeat these mistakes over and over again.
I have hopes for the pilot house in Quaqtaq. I believe this is a first where they won't just be monitoring it technically but also socially. I find that's a big improvement. Again, when we're talking about sustainability, let's not forget that it's not all about energy and green conservation, it's also about culturally adapted and that ultimately people feel that there's a sense of wellness in their house. That's what you want. Technology is there to support it, not for its own sake.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Fournier. It's been most instructive to have you here, especially after we've seen for ourselves what the houses look like up North. On behalf of all senators, I want to thank you for your presentation.
For the second panel today, we will hear from Habitat for Humanity Canada. From Iqaluit, via video conference, we have Glenn Cousins, Board Chair; and here in Ottawa we are happy to welcome Jay Thakar, Manager, Indigenous Housing Program. We will start with a statement and then move to questions. For your information, there will be a two-to-three-second delay on the video conferencing. If it seems like it takes a while to get an answer, that's the reason.
Mr. Cousins, please proceed.
Glenn Cousins, Board Chair, Habitat for Humanity Iqaluit: Good morning, everyone, and thank you very much for the opportunity to present to you this morning.
I truly regret that I was unable to travel to Ottawa to meet with you this morning. I appreciate the inconvenience of the video conferencing set-up. Our Internet is quite slow, so the lag may be a bit of a problem. Hopefully we can get through that.
Once again, I'm very delighted to be presenting to you this morning. Habitat for Humanity Iqaluit is a very small affiliate of Habitat for Humanity Canada. I'm going to speak to our particular interesting challenges. I've asked my colleague, Ms. Thakar from Habitat Canada, to come along and give a broader context from a national perspective and some of her experience with the delivery of housing in indigenous communities.
First, as a bit of background, Habitat for Humanity Iqaluit is by far the smallest Habitat affiliate in Canada. I believe there are about 55 or 56 affiliates across Canada, ranging from very large housing developers with a lot of staff to small volunteer-operated organizations like ours. We were established in 2005 and built our first home in 2007. We've built a total of four homes. Our last home was finished in December 2013. We've actually been unable to build any more housing for a variety of reasons but primarily because there are no serviced lots of any kind currently available in Iqaluit.
Our organization is 100 per cent volunteer run. The only paid staff we've ever had is a summer student from time to time. We've had a construction foreman for the third and fourth homes, who was basically provided as a secondment from one of the large Inuit-owned construction companies that operates in Nunavut.
All of our Habitat families have been Inuit or primarily Inuit. By that I mean that the families are mixed Inuit and non-Inuit, which is a fairly common situation in Iqaluit.
Our long-term vision, which we established in 2013, was to build 10 homes by 2020. This has turned into a very challenging objective for a variety of reasons. Certainly not least is the availability of financing and funding to purchase materials, I suppose our organizational capacity, being only volunteer operated, and again, access to land available to build on.
There are a lot of positives, such as housing for families in an affordable home ownership model like Habitat and engaging the community through volunteerism and partnerships and donors to build these homes and be part of the solution in the community — community members contributing to the solution in some way. I'm also proud to say that one of our homes was built as being fully accessible for a disabled person, as a child of one of our families is quite disabled.
Often I've heard, and I've listened to some of the other testimony given to the Senate committee on housing, about the link between housing and economic development, well-being and other related issues such as education outcomes and so on. I have to say that for us this is not a mystery. This is not something we don't understand. We fully understand it because where we live, it is something we interact with every day. It's something that we're aware of within our own extended families and those of colleagues at work and so on.
Our hope is that we could expand our activity not only because it's a good result but because we think we can be a platform for other aspects of economic development, for example, training initiatives with youth and so on. Ms. Thakar can speak to that if there're questions because there are some really great experiences with the volunteer aspect of Habitat and the connection with youth and some career awareness-type activities. Again, our long-term goal is not only to build more homes but also to connect our building activities with these other activities. To do that, we need to enhance our capacity, obviously, but also have the homes to build, so there are two sides of this.
Interestingly enough, we also have a significant tourism component to our volunteer activity. Over four builds, we have hosted 140 volunteer tourists who are associated with Habitat's Global Village Program. These are folks who typically travel throughout the world, often to disaster relief locations and to developing nations, to build homes. The Global Village Program recognized the need in the North was so great that they offered Iqaluit as a destination for Global Village teams. These are folks that basically take a paid vacation. They pay a package price to travel to wherever they wish in the world, where trips are available. Many of them have chosen Iqaluit as a place to come and build.
To end my comments, I've heard some of the questions and comments around logistics and the cost of construction. Since we use a lot of volunteer labour, our cost of construction can be modest as compared to a developer, although we do have other cost factors. For example, it takes us a bit longer to build. It's difficult to build homes based on fundraising. As I said in my presentation that Jay brought along, it's difficult to build homes with bake sales. That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but we are doing this just based on volunteer fundraising efforts and fantastic partnerships with donors and others that support our activities.
I look forward to the discussion and questions, and I will turn it over to Jay. Thank you.
Jay Thakar, Manager, Indigenous Housing Program, Habitat for Humanity Canada: Good morning. Thanks for inviting Habitat. It is a privilege to come and share with you who we are and what we do. Although I have provided an extensive presentation in front of you, I'm just going to walk you through that within a few minutes.
Habitat for Humanity is one of the largest international not-for-profit organizations focused on affordable housing, with a vision where everyone has a safe and decent place to live.
Our homes are typically built with mobilized community partners and volunteer help. As Glen mentioned, that allows us to build homes that are more affordable. Those homes are then owned by low-income households to eradicate the cycle of poverty.
We were founded in 1976 in Augusta, Georgia, and are now operating in about 70-plus countries around the world. We have helped about 1-plus million households and 5 million people to live in a safe, decent home environment.
In Canada, we have been operating for about 30 years. We were founded in 1985, in Manitoba. We are currently operating with the help of 56 affiliates across the country, in all provinces and territories.
Our Habitat model is all about a hand up and not a hand out. We firmly believe in partnership. Identified eligible families partner with Habitat to build their own home. Habitat helps the families raise the funds and building materials to build the homes. The families work 500 hours of volunteer work as sweat equity towards their down payment.
Once the home is built, the family pays no-interest mortgages and no down payment to Habitat, and no more than 30 per cent of the gross income from the family is directed towards mortgages. If their income goes up, they start paying a little more. If their income goes down, they start paying a little less. The collected mortgage fund is then invested into building many more homes.
In our model, the partner family is building equity. There's no need for annual subsidies from the government. Every dollar invested in Habitat homes is generating $4 of social benefits in society.
Our experience with indigenous housing is new. Following a 2006 UN report demonstrating a deficit for indigenous housing in Canada, Habitat for Humanity decided to explore whether there was a role for us to play. With the help of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation as a founding partner, we introduced a pilot program.
We were pleasantly surprised that by 2010, we had about 34 families that had partnered with Habitat. The myths that Aboriginal or indigenous families are not interested in paying for homes or not interested in home ownership were proven wrong to us. We are happy to report today that we have close to 150 families that have partnered with Habitat so far. While we are working with all those families, we're also continuing to seek better understanding of indigenous housing challenges faced by Canada's indigenous peoples.
Our strategic objectives for the Indigenous Housing Program is it's all about partnership and collaboration with indigenous communities and families. We are also working hard towards helping them to realize their dream of affordable home ownership. We are engaging and empowering indigenous youth by entertaining their involvement in Habitat home building activities.
Canadians are very interested in working with Habitat and to learn more about indigenous peoples and their culture. We now have the Canada Builds Program, which allows us to bring them to Canada's indigenous communities. Of course, we are also looking at innovation and creating synergy with government programs.
The Indigenous Housing Program, as we indicated earlier, has built about 150 homes. About 62 homes are built directly with the partnership of indigenous housing groups and communities, and that includes 35 homes on indigenous traditional territories.
We have come a long way from 2007, and 2014 was our banner year. We celebrated our 100th partnership with indigenous families. We also launched our very first project on a reserve, with Flying Dust First Nation in Saskatchewan, and we are happy to report that the project has come along very well. We are building 10 homes for the community's elders. Every home is wheelchair accessible, all under one roof, and we will be dedicating that home June 24 this year. You are all are welcome to come.
Glen talked at length about his activities in Iqaluit. We are also building in Yukon. Over the last 10 years, we have built 16 homes. That includes a triplex on a First Nation settlement. It is a totally energy-efficient triplex where the partnering families are claiming that their mobile phone bills are higher than the complete utility bills, which is about $200 a month.
We have also partnered with traditional territories. Our largest Habitat affiliate, Edmonton, builds an average of about 70 homes in a good year and has partnered with the Métis Council of Alberta to build 100 homes. They've already built 12 homes where families have moved in, and 10 are under construction. The ultimate goal is to be able to build 100 homes over the eight Métis settlements.
In our prized project in partnership with Flying Dust First Nation, we are introducing a housing continuum. We, as Canadians, are so used to moving from one home to another to reflect changes in our home requirement or size requirement, but indigenous families continue to live in the same home. Elders at Flying Dust First Nation were living in an over-housed housing environment whereby they had three-bedroom homes but nobody to live with and nobody to maintain their homes, but they needed wheelchair-accessible homes. When Chief Merasty — the former chief — approached Habitat to partner with them to build wheelchair-accessible homes, we said, "Sure, we will be able to do so,'' but families always remained our focus.
What we agreed to do, once elders moved into wheelchair-accessible homes, is retrofit the vacated homes for younger families to provide them access to affordable home ownership. There are some photographs there just to give the flavor.
The last one focuses on indigenous youth skills and training enhancement. Our affiliates are partnering with technical schools where they are engaging indigenous youth to enhance their skills. Habitat Regina has partnered with Regina Trade and Skills Centre where, over the last three years, annually, 40 youth are engaged in building homes, and 30 to 40 per cent of those youth are indigenous. Prince Albert has partnered with the Correctional Service of Canada, where they annually build a home and then roll it out to the site. Prince Albert has also partnered with high schools in the Lac La Ronge area, where they are benefiting from volunteering on Habitat homes and acquiring skills.
We envision all those indigenous youth who are partnering with Habitat and volunteering on those homes as tomorrow's entrepreneurs. They will be able to go and help out their own communities.
The housing challenges, as we see within the indigenous communities, are twofold: a shortfall of housing as well as existing housing being in poor condition. We are focusing on both of those.
You have in front of you a list of some of the partners and stakeholders.
The last one is our Vision 2020, whereby we envision that we would be able to partner with more than 250 families and provide, on an annual basis, opportunities to 200-plus indigenous youth across the country.
Thank you. I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have.
The Chair: Thank you for the information. If you don't mind, I'll go first with a short question.
You were talking about training programs, and you mentioned that Habitat Prince Albert is partnering with Corrections Canada. I was thinking that when we were visiting Iqaluit, we did drive past a corrections facility, and we also visited shelters that housed men and others that housed women. Has there been any thought given to developing partnerships in the North that would involve people who are housed in either shelters or corrections facilities?
Mr. Cousins: Thanks for the question. We have had some involvement with young offenders helping out on build sites doing some of the set-up work and labour. We do not have a formalized arrangement and we have not, as yet, been in contact with the correctional centre — BCC — for that kind of partnership. Quite frankly, the capacity to establish that kind of relationship, not to mention manage it, is something that we just don't have right now.
The Chair: As a follow-up to that, what about involving the high school youth? Is that something that could be feasible?
Mr. Cousins: Yes, we've had some discussions with folks at the high school about that. Unfortunately, the challenge we've had is that we are typically building from early June through to roughly the beginning of September, and so school is out, essentially, during that time. It's something that we could enhance if we were able to increase our build activities, where we were doing more interior work or some prefab work, perhaps during the winter months.
Senator Patterson: I'm glad we are able to hear from you, Mr. Cousins, even though we didn't have quite enough time to meet with you when we were in Iqaluit recently. This is great. Would you able to describe what the homes built in Iqaluit cost and roughly what size they were? Either now or later.
Mr. Cousins: Yes, I can give you a rough idea of that, Senator Patterson. It's good to see you.
On average, our homes have cost us about $290,000 to build. I say "on average'' because each home has had some different factors which have increased or decreased the construction costs. For example, our first home was our least expensive, partly because of where it was built, the terrain it was built on and the fact that we had absolutely no paid staff for that home. We still contract out things like heating and electrical work, but in that case we did not have paid staff. Our costs actually increased for our third and fourth homes, where we've had paid site supervision, which we saw as an absolute necessity in order to ensure that our construction was up to code and so on.
Our homes are all between about 1,300 and 1,400 square feet — the most recent two in Apex are 1,356 square feet — and they're all three-bedroom homes.
Senator Patterson: Thank you. That's most impressive. You certainly can't buy a house in Iqaluit for anywhere near that cost, as you know.
I'd like to ask another question. I want to say I really appreciate that Habitat for Humanity operates primarily with volunteers and, if I understand correctly, without government funding, but our committee's report and recommendations will be directed at the federal government because of our mandate as a parliamentary committee. I'd like to ask either witness: What could the federal government, or perhaps even a territorial government — I see you had a partnership with the Yukon Housing Corporation — be encouraged to do to build on your success? This will help us in looking at how we promote this model, which is impressive, particularly throughout indigenous and remote communities.
Ms. Thakar: Thank you. In terms of Habitat Yukon's partnership with Yukon Housing Corporation, Yukon Housing Corporation has made service lots accessible to Habitat in a timely manner so that they are able to build on those lots. As well, because the construction costs of those homes are relatively higher than the incomes of low-income households that partner with us, they have two sets of mortgages. The first mortgage is typically to cover what they can cover for the first 15 to 20 years, and the second one is what they would deal with at the time of sale should they decide to sell the house.
In partnership with Habitat Yukon, Habitat Yukon purchases the first mortgage, and that allows Habitat Yukon to reinvest that money right away to build more homes. So the difference between Habitat Yukon and Habitat Iqaluit is that although they have both been operating during generally the same period, Habitat Yukon has now been able to build 16 homes because they have that access to funds. So should Habitat Iqaluit also have a similar partnership with the territorial government in the area, they could provide access to serviced land on a timely basis, and also provide access to building materials that they may have.
Shipping is a big issue. There is always more material than they can handle. Should Habitat be given the option, access to it would be great.
As well, if they can discharge the first mortgages with the family right away, Habitat Iqaluit will not have to wait until they have raised enough funds to build a second home. That's the challenge Glenn Cousins and his team are facing. I hope this helps.
Mr. Cousins: We have had conversations with the Nunavut Housing Corporation about the Yukon model regarding the purchase of mortgages, essentially, and they've been very reluctant to go down that path with us. They have been supportive in providing lots. They provided three lots free of charge. They were the first three lots we built on. Unfortunately, though, they've been in the process of densifying their housing and have no more single family lots available. If we were to go to multi-family, which we should down the road, again there are no lots available.
I've spoken to a few people about this in the past. As far as the federal government is concerned, if not all of the money that is being transferred to Nunavut for the construction of housing went towards social housing, if we could slice off even a small, tiny percentage of $100 million and make that available for other initiatives such as Habitat for Humanity, that would go a long way. I've said that if we could just get 1 per cent, that is a million dollars, and that would be a great leg up for our organization. That is something that the federal government could look at.
Senator Patterson: A quick supplementary: The people that you built for in Iqaluit, were they living in social housing? Have you been able to liberate social housing units by building for them?
Mr. Cousins: That is the situation in at least one case. In a couple of other cases, people were living in employer- provided housing, which is a big thing in Iqaluit, which was far too small for their families. In one case, it was a family of five living in a two-bedroom, employer-provided apartment. That handcuffed one of the parents to a specific job because that was their only way of having housing. That's also a factor. We didn't just liberate social housing; we liberated that family from being stuck to a certain employer even if they had other opportunities, and because the housing was just way too small for the family.
Senator Enverga: Thank you for your hard work and dedication to this cause.
Just to keep you all informed, I used to be a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. We built houses in Toronto. I'm impressed with the way the buildings work. The ones we built are still standing until now. It's over 20 years ago.
I'm impressed with the fact that there are about 65,000 volunteers, and especially with those in Northern Canada. Volunteerism is very important. I believe it will give them the skills and knowledge to build houses. Have there been instances where your volunteers have become so skillful that they've created a career for themselves that sustained their livelihood? Have there been instances like that in in your volunteer work?
Ms. Thakar: Typically, our volunteers are retirees like me, who have made their career and have all the time in the world to help out. We also have very young volunteers. Have we come across any volunteers that have made a career by volunteering at Habitat? I cannot comfortably endorse that. We do have partnerships with technical schools and carpentry school programs where students are eagerly waiting to apply and learn by hands-on skills training. Habitat is providing an opportunity to those students.
I personally have a vision. Every youth volunteering on Habitat homes through their technical programs should be given adequate tools after the program. They will become tomorrow's entrepreneurs. It's all right for us to teach them how to write, but if they don't have a pencil to write with, they will never write. What I'm hoping is a day will come whereby, with all of our partnerships, we not only provide opportunities to our indigenous youth to acquire hands-on training, but also leave tools whereby they will start fixing existing homes that require a lot of repairs. That would be easier than building a brand new home.
Mr. Cousins: There have been a couple of cases where we've had young people on the build site that were quite keen on learning how a house is built. However, we haven't been around long enough or built enough homes to really see how that has developed or evolved into a career path for a young person.
This is partly a capacity challenge for us. One of the ideas that we have sitting on our desk is to partner more closely with organizations delivering the Aboriginal Skills and Employment Training Strategy funds and also the Youth Employment Strategy funds so that we can set up better career awareness and boot camp opportunities for young people to get on our build sites. Again, it's a bit of a challenge for us because we aren't building right now, but it's something that we would love to be doing if we could just have more build activity.
Senator Raine: Mr. Cousins, you mentioned that for three out of the four houses you built, you were provided with a serviced lot to start on. How did you arrange the fourth one? Is there any discussion with your group on perhaps a future opportunity to use Inuit-owned land in Iqaluit for residential development?
Mr. Cousins: The arrangement between the Nunavut Housing Corporation and Habitat for the transfer of existing lots predates my involvement, actually, but there were some people that basically had a conversation. Because the Nunavut Housing Corporation had established a strategy to densify the public housing units, they would be taking out five or six single-family houses and putting up a ten-plex. That's what's been going on in Iqaluit. So there were these single family lots that were in random locations throughout the community where this densifying would not be able to occur, so they basically surplussed those lots and made them available to Habitat.
The fourth lot was made available because we established an MOU with the City of Iqaluit. The City of Iqaluit has agreed that each time they're developing a new subdivision or small cluster of homes, even 10 or 12 homes, that they would give us a right of first refusal on a lot. That's how we obtained our fourth lot, and that's how we hope we will obtain another lot by 2017.
Senator Raine: At that point, though, you still have to purchase it.
Mr. Cousins: That's correct. The lots that we get through the City of Iqaluit are discounted as part of their affordable housing support, but they're not free. We do have to pay for those lots.
In terms of the Inuit-owned lands, that is something that we've had discussions about with the folks who are involved in developing the large parcel of Inuit-owned land in Iqaluit. There is an opportunity down the road to be building on their land, but right now their project is in development, and that could be five to ten years down the road.
The Chair: As a supplementary to that last question regarding Inuit-owned lands, I'm wondering if you have thought about developing a program involving Inuit youth or Inuit adults to be involved in training programs so that there are skills and knowledge passed on to increase the pool of locally trained carpenters or electricians or what have you.
Mr. Cousins: That's something we would absolutely love to do. Again, we may be able to tap into some funding support through the assets and YES programs to support that activity, but, quite frankly, we need our own capacity and resources to build. In order to establish and maintain a program like that — which I agree would be fantastic — we need to be able to build homes. It's kind of a Catch-22.
The Chair: I wonder, then, if you would recommend that there be a federal program of some sort to support that kind of activity.
Mr. Cousins: I think there are programs available to support some of the training elements, including having trainers and that sort of thing. What we would need is the building activity to occur.
As I mentioned earlier, it would be, in my mind, fantastic if, when the federal government chooses to make transfers to Nunavut for housing, that maybe some of that could be made available to an organization like Habitat or — I won't be greedy — to another organization that wants to build affordable housing, maybe a co-op model or whatever, so that we could tap into that big chunk of funding to move forward with our initiatives.
Senator Watt: Thank you for your presentations. My focus will be on the capacity of Habitat for Humanity.
You have indicated that it's not for profit. I'm wondering how this organization or agency is affiliated in terms of various provinces, countries or territories? Do you have only one not-for-profit organization that is covering all the activities around the world? Is that the whole idea, or are there other sub-organizations that exist, let's say, that cover Iqaluit, for example, or Nunavut? Could you enlighten me on that so I could understand better in terms of the structural relations between the various game-players?
Ms. Thakar: Habitat for Humanity is an international organization. We are operating in approximately 75 countries around the world right now.
In Canada, we have 56 affiliates. It is a federated model. Habitat Iqaluit is an independent entity. It follows all the principles of Habitat for Humanity. Habitat for Humanity does provide some support, but primarily each affiliate is independently supported by themselves, with their board of directors. They raise their own funds. As well, they partner with the provinces and municipalities independently.
As far as the Indigenous Housing Program is concerned, it is a new program. We have initiated a leadership whereby we are evolving as far as the program is concerned. Through grants, we are helping Habitat affiliates reach out to indigenous families and strengthen their capacity to be able to serve those indigenous families, because it is a new area. They have to be able to walk before they run. We are reaching out to help those individual affiliates.
It is a federated model. There are donors in the Canadian environment right now who are very sympathetic to help the indigenous cause, and they are donating. We have some large private foundations, as well as industry members and champions who are supporting us, and that is helping us to build more homes.
Senator Watt: The other related question I would like to put forward is on the affordability side. I would imagine that when the international community decided to put instruments in place, it was to answer affordable housing. Is that correct?
Ms. Thakar: Yes.
Senator Watt: Only for that reason does this agency exist today.
Ms. Thakar: It is all about affordability, but affordable home ownership. We are very focused on home ownership, because we firmly believe that it is home ownership that will allow those families to move out of the cycle of poverty. Otherwise, there are families living in social housing that remain in social housing.
Many of our families come from the social housing environment. At the end of the day, families paying for home ownership with Habitat are paying no more than what they were paying while living in a social housing environment: 30 per cent of their gross income. Every dollar paid to Habitat is going toward reducing the principal cost. That is their equity.
Senator Watt: I would imagine that you are quite satisfied with the fact that you have a strong administrative structure in place. I'm wondering if there is a strong enough infrastructure in place when you're dealing with the North, knowing the fact that people leave and come in and go out. There is a lot of turnover that takes place. You also mentioned the fact that maybe it is time to start considering seriously training local people in those concepts of affordable housing. The technology might not be exactly the same. Is that your approach?
Ms. Thakar: I'll answer one question, but then I would like Glenn to address this on his own as well.
Many of our affiliates in the South are also benefiting from partnerships and support from the provincial governments. In Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba, the provincial government is part of the partnership with Habitat and providing anywhere from $50,000 to $70,000 a home to Habitat affiliates to invest in those home ownerships.
The provinces are also prudent. By partnering with Habitat, they are serving a family in need, but they don't have to continue to provide subsidies, because Habitat moves on in partnership with home ownership with a deserving family, a working family that is able to make the commitment to pay no more than 30 per cent of their gross income towards a mortgage.
Over to you, Glenn.
Mr. Cousins: The question around capacity is a very good one, because as Jay points out, even though we are affiliated, each affiliate, each member, operates independently. In our particular case, we are 100 per cent volunteer. I've been involved now for just about nine years as board chair, which essentially makes me an unpaid executive director quite often. It is very difficult, I must say, to maintain the energy and so on to carry on at times.
As you mentioned quite rightly, with all organizations like this, whether they be boards, co-ops or whatever, there is always turnover that has an impact on the capacity and growth of the organization. We would like to move past that point, but we've been so far unsuccessful in securing the kind of funding that would allow us to establish staff, such as an executive director, and increase our build activity to the point where we have enough activity going on that we would sustain ourselves more effectively.
Every time we're doing a build project — I could speak from personal experience — taking vacation time and so on to assist in supervising or planning the logistics or whatever for those projects, all of that is volunteer-driven, and it won't change and that capacity aspect of things will not really increase until we can get both the money to build and some money to operate from perhaps the territorial government.
The Chair: We have run out of time, but the analysts have asked me to ask you one last question, and that is with regard to programs Habitat for Humanity might have that ensure individuals have the skills or resources to maintain their homes once the home has been built. For instance, this morning we heard about problems with HRV systems. Could you briefly describe to us what kind of programs you offer?
Ms. Thakar: We do have home ownership assistance programs for families partnering with Habitat. We typically hold their hands for the first few years, because it is our investment as well, and we want to make sure that it is protected. Also, with the fact that they are the homeowners, they also want to protect their asset, so it is in their interest.
We do have a curriculum whereby the families are working with Habitat, not only for financial management of their affairs on a household basis for ensuring that they are capable of looking after their own mortgage commitments, but also in terms of maintenance of the home.
Also, typically because our program is designed to mortgages geared to income, we typically visit families annually to ensure that if their income is going up, they should start paying a little more. If the income is going down, they should start paying less.
But our program is all about partnership. Our families are our partners, and we work together to protect the asset that we jointly own.
The Chair: Mr. Cousins, did you have anything to add?
Mr. Cousins: As Jay has laid out quite well, on our board, we actually have a board member who is specifically responsible for what we call "family partner.'' The responsibility of that board member and committee is to ensure that the families are supported in whatever way they are required to be supported. If they need that help to be reminded to have their furnace or boilers checked annually, to ensure they have personal property insurance or housing insurance, or that they need help to secure that insurance the first time around, if they need a home economics basic type of support, how to budget appropriately; and so on, that is something that we've done. It is basically, as Jay said, a hand- holding. It's part of our hand-up mentality that we want to help that family also gain capacity around the idea of home ownership and what it means to maintain a home, to budget appropriately and so on. It's a very important part of our program.
Ms. Thakar: I would like to add one sentence. Habitat Manitoba typically gives out a tool box to partnering families so that they are able to look after little repairs here and there. We do equip them well.
The Chair: On behalf of all the committee members, I want to thank you, Ms. Thakar and Mr. Cousins, for appearing today and telling us about Habitat for Humanity Canada and for suggesting several recommendations.
(The committee adjourned.)