Human Resources committee  For indigenous communities, our affordability is often defined by outsiders. Oftentimes, it does not meet the income in our community, so it creates a huge housing barrier outside of the reserve. I know that each first nation's needs are different. It would be great, when devel

Human Resources committee  Sure. I could try to answer that question. It is a bit frustrating having a lot of the housing funding defined as being on reserve and off reserve. The Province of B.C. is the first province to fund housing on reserve and not to look at those lines anymore, and it's made a huge i

Human Resources committee  It would be great to have this funding also for first nations on reserve. It can be a little bit frustrating how sometimes the fund looks at on reserve and off reserve differently. Because we have a traditional territory, we are an unceded first nation, so it would be great to be

Human Resources committee  Sure, I would be happy to. The Squamish Nation only had one housing program for a really long time. That was the single-family homes funded through own-source revenue and through ISC funding. For the longest time, that was the only program. Those homes are essentially free. Nobo

Human Resources committee  Sure. Again, we hope the programming is flexible and that we can have more funding for culturally safe and appropriate housing design and supports so that we can help to heal within our communities and help to heal from the generations of trauma that we've had to go through with

Human Resources committee  Ha7lh skwáyel. My name is Sarah Silva. I'm a member of the Squamish Nation and I'm also the CEO of Hiy̓ám̓ Housing Society. To give you a little bit about the Squamish Nation, we are located in British Columbia, in Vancouver and Squamish. Our traditional territory expands all th

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Huy chexw. Thank you.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I can speak to that. Thank you. For me, the declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples is really all about self-determination: the right to be able to live within our communities and practise our way of life, but also to administer the different programs and policies. For h

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There are a lot of diverse housing needs in first nations communities. We're working on doing a housing needs assessment right now and it's something we're trying to seek out funding for. I think that would really help the different first nations to understand what the actual nee

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It's about partnerships, definitely. We have a really strong partnership with CMHC, with BC Housing and a variety of different non-profits. Everybody is coming to the table with something, and it's a partnership moving forward. We've had a lot of support, and building on those re

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think the one-size-fits-all approach to different first nations doesn't necessarily work. We're all very unique and different in our needs. We're very much in an urban setting, so that high-density approach does work for us, but it won't necessarily work for a community up nort

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We currently don't have a renovation program. It's definitely a big need within our community, but we started the home loan program last year, and we're looking to expand on it in different phases. We're going to be looking to do a renovation program in the next few years. I th

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I was actually one of the founding members of Hiyam Housing. I've worked in the non-profit sector for over 10 years now. I think they're doing some really amazing things here in our province, especially BC Housing. They've started to develop and fund housing on reserve, which w

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Oh, okay, absolutely. I was just going to give some recommendations. We really need housing to be prioritized. There are a lot of housing barriers that exist under the Indian Act. I hope that those can be reviewed and that we can create more pathways to housing. Of course, a lo

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I was talking a little bit about infrastructure. We have received some funding to build some housing on reserve, but a lot of that funding doesn't come with infrastructure funding for water services, sewers and things like that. It would be great to have access to more funding to