FNNBOA Guide for the Development of Accessibility Standards for the Built Environment

FNNBOA is pleased to release the Guide for the Development of Accessibility Standards for the Built Environment In Northern, Rural, Remote and Indigenous Communities  (Link below)

This release is timely and fits the need for housing managers in First Nations Indian Reservations in Canada to equip homes with accessibility equipment and designs.

This guide focuses on persons living with disabilities in remote, rural, northern, and Indigenous communities.

The guide is organized according to the following areas of concern:

* Cognitive

* Communication

* Intellectual

* Learning

* Mental Illness

* Physical

* Sensory

The guide provides accessibility solutions for the built environment that focus on homes. The built environment includes:

Common access and circulation – entrances, hallways, doors and doorways, ramps, stairs and ground and floor surfaces

Exterior space – accessible exterior routes – sidewalks

Communication elements – visual display systems

Rooms and spaces – kitchens, bathrooms, living or common-use spaces

Other – caregivers, live-in help, or other essential information

Download the document

Guide for the Development of Accessibility Standards for the Built Environment In Northern, Rural, Remote and Indigenous Communities (.pdf file / 1.6mb)  

View other FNNBOA accessibility-related content  

Report: The Beginnings of FNNBOA

Laying the Foundation for a First Nations / Aboriginal Inspectors Association (PDF - version français) - This report focuses on the outcomes of a meeting that was held on March 23 and 24, 2002 in Ottawa. A foundation meeting for what was to become FNNBOA.

One of the key decisions made was to establish an association to represent inspectors serving First Nations and Aboriginal communities. The group also nominated us as co-chairs to help establish this association. The report also identifies other key decisions that were made during the meeting.

Guide for the Development of Accessibility Standards for the Built Environment In Northern, Rural, Remote and Indigenous Communities (.pdf file / 1.6mb)  

View other FNNBOA accessibility-related content  

Hemp acting like the new kid on the block in agriculture

Creating expertise in First Nation housing in Canada

A key goal for Sylvia Olsen was to establish a national First Nations building Inspector program in education, an accredited course in housing management, and Olsen was involved with Nancy Hamilton at Vancouver Island University (VIU) in developing the curriculum for housing managers to become certified First Nation housing inspectors.

Olsen knows there is a patchwork of regulations in First Nation housing. There is no national building code on-reserve and regulations about housing are done reserve by reserve. What are the main impediments creating national standards for building inspections and housing departments on Indian Reservations in Canada?

Obviously first and foremost it's money. Building codes and related inspections and enforcement are done reserve by reserve. There is no cash to pay for education and salary of qualified building inspectors. It is the opinion of people like Olsen that it's time to bite the bullet, for government to implement a wide-spread national blitz to create housing codes for First Nations equal to the National Building Code of Canada. Olsen believes that some will continue to refuse, and it will take more time and effort, but it requires something other than the piecemeal approach.

"What will force it is new home ownership coming on reserve, a trend that is occurring amongst both young and old who are getting private mortgages." Olsen suggests they will be concerned with protecting the assets they have purchased. "Band offices by and large have no capacity to do it, managing properties does not take priority in council and Bands often lack administrative capacity for managing residential and commercial real estate."

It takes doing the legwork on training to build capacity to administer codes, including those which apply to people with mortgages for example.

Development of housing is done amid a lack of qualifications where building inspection may not be entirely desirable by Band Councils, which is ultimately why the regulatory approach has to be national.

Olsen was finishing a Ph.D on housing, and continues to teach and consult on Aboriginal housing around Canada, was a course facilitator with VIU, where the university has had very active students from around B.C.. Housing managers are taking the course. Some started and found it was more to handle than they thought, and others have remained dedicated to the present program.

They are delivering the course over about three months on-line, and VIU is receiving interest right across the country. Olsen says VIU has been persistent in delivering the program. She has been across the country to numerous reserves, witnessing housing managers improving housing in First Nation communities. She has traveled to distant points, including northern Ontario for two months where portfolios of Bands contain every housing hurdle imaginable.

Olsen comes by her experience in First Nation housing from more than three decades living on Tsarlip Indian Reserve near Victoria, B.C., “I met my husband and moved there when I was 17 years old and I raised my family there,” she says. “It's a very nice place to live. I worked in housing at Tsarlip beginning in the early 1990s.”

The creation of accredited courses was initially pursued by the First Nation National Housing Managers Association (FNNHMA), now defunct. Olsen was a founding member of FNNHMA in 2006. She worked in provincial and national Aboriginal housing committees over the years. She immersed in the study of First Nation housing based on the history of Aboriginal housing development in Canada. Olsen has other interests, is a storyteller at heart, was a writer-in-residence at Carson Graham School in North Vancouver, B.C.. “I am a member of the Victoria Storytellers Guild.”

Olsen worked with Mike King a Housing Manager of Beausoliel First Nation in southern Ontario since 2000, and Nancy Hamilton at VIU Distance Education Department. King says, “We work-shopped the idea of a housing managers certificate program with CMHC when we started in 2006. We received funding from CMHC to visit housing trade shows and conferences, get a website established, and start developing a proper job description for housing management.”

King says, “It's really all about property management on-reserve. Property management comes into it because the area of responsibility grows when you consider the tens of millions of dollars in property management we are discussing. It involves rents, mortgages, and asset management. A lot of these administrative functions are being done on a part-time basis." Much more is needed to be done.

FNNHMA may have folded but success was in the wind for Olsen. They developed the program at VIU. The first module of certification was piloted in three locations around B.C., in 2008/09. Fifteen students took the course in Nanaimo, and other classes were held in Terrace and Kamloops. She was initial facilitator teaching the course in the hope that along with certification, a complete curricula including finance, administration, communications, and construction management would be developed. Once it was all put together, VIU would work to encourage national certification.

The Atlantic provinces received pilot programs. Pilot courses were delivered in Moncton and Halifax. They were coast to coast with the program and there was strong interest in Quebec Aboriginal housing for working out the language questions to certify in Quebec. Organizers have always felt the urgency to get the program going is on a national basis.

VIU rolled out a full-time program and the way it stands is VIU delivers B.C. First Nations Building Inspector courses in a Full-time Certificate Program. First Nations Building Inspector is a program designed to provide participants with specific skills for successful employment as a Building Inspector.

VIU dedicated resources to developing a unique program. The Nanaimo-based university applied for program funding as an exceptional school. At the same time they recognized it was a First Nations initiative. One of the main battles was to establish appropriate financial remuneration for certified housing managers.

“Finding the wage for certified housing managers is one of the challenges. You have precedents out there but a great deal depends on the financial state of the Band.” Even so, “Across Canada we have some of the most amazing people working in housing management on reserve,” and, Olsen noted, “The force of their expertise and a certification process will help make housing management certification a national reality," eventually.

Housing on-reserve is changing. “Lots of people are working to resolve the structural issues in First Nation housing. Poverty remains the main problem in housing. Another problem is that housing remains entirely government-run,” whereas other social activities like health and education have been taken over by the First Nations. “Aboriginal housing will eventually be,” she says, “under the direct control of First Nation leadership.”

Some of the emerging leadership came from FNNBOA, "It's been a long time coming," said Richard (Bud) Jobin (who passed away in 2015), regarding education initiatives to certify housing management officers in First Nations. Jobin had said, "We have supported them from the beginning." Jobin was director of FNNBOA and was working for a over a decade to arrange education of First Nation building officers qualified for housing inspection.

FNNBOA focused its effort with people like Nancy Hamilton at Vancouver Island University to make the housing management and inspection skills transferrable to the mainstream economy. FNNBOA was dedicated to higher standards, and Jobin believed they needed the inspector course at VIU to deliver transferrable skills. Jobin had noticed that the province of B.C. was supportive of FNNBOA in the process of seeking national standards for First Nation housing professionals.

FNNBOA Winter 2014 newsletter contained a stark reminder of the necessity for change in First Nation housing standards, "Cold winter weather in Canada conjures up images of skating on outdoor rinks and tobogganing. Unfortunately, it also brings fire losses and deaths, especially in First Nations communities. This happened recently in Pelican Narrows, Sask., where two boys died in a house fire. Fire deaths among Canada’s First Nations people are the highest in North America. The fire incidence rate is2.4 times greater per capita than that for the rest of Canada, the fire damage per unit 2.1 times greater, the fire injury rate 2.5 times greater, and the death rate 10.4 times greater."


Freelance Writing by Mack McColl

Cost efficiencies of geothermal meeting widespread approval

Look at housing and infrastructure and you should be looking at geothermal, says Inez Miller of Manitoba Geothermal Energy Alliance (MGEA). “It doesn’t matter where you look in the province, the business arrangements work.” Miller says, “Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs is expressing interest in geothermal from an overall planning perspective. They tell us it has a strong appeal based on funding, access to resources, and other issues that could make projects successful.”

MGEA wants to be positioned to address areas of concern expressed by AMC in workshops. She notes that Darcy Wood, AMC housing and infrastructure manager, made a presentation to MGEA this spring that contained a lot of statistical analysis about housing needs assessments. “It was an excellent presentation. Geothermal presents phenomenal opportunities and we learned about the issues around potable water that could be tied to geothermal systems.”

Brian Soulier works at AMC on geothermal issues, “What we did last March was host a workshop in a technology working group that focused on the economic development with people in finance, human resources, environment, and infrastructure or housing planning. Our workshops brought together First Nations to communicate about advancements in technology.”

One topic of discussion was geothermal, and Miller spoke about MGEA as did Ed Lohrenz, Vice President of MGEA, Ron Robins, MGEA president, “and Cross Lakes First Nation presented on their success story with a 38-unit housing installation in a district loop. Franklin Ross came with their contractor to discuss installation and the obstacles that were overcome.”

Soulier said, “Knowledge exchange with First Nations communities helps those who are interested and assists others who perceive it cautiously, stating that geothermal is too complicated or too costly. The expense depends on the priority of the community, those seeking good infrastructure solutions with long run cost efficiencies will find the economic capacity. We are advocating geothermal for the communities in Manitoba.”

Winnipeg Geothermal’s Ron Robins is serving president of MGEA. Board members are competitors and Robins is owner of a geothermal  installer company doing design and installation, conducting geological drilling assessments for heat exchange arrays for either commercial buildings or apartment blocks.

Friesen Drillers is owned by John Friesen, operating a third generation family business drilling in Manitoba since the late 1800s. Frieson is a board member MGEU, “We work all over Canada,” from an operational centre in Steinbach, Manitoba. “Drilling in the Canadian Shield is more expensive, even so, you get thermal conductivity in the shield that is higher than average, so it’s a positive geothermal situation that is more expensive to access with the same payback on BTUs, although the cost to drill goes up.”

Geothermal drilling occurs in rock, clay, limestone, any conditions. One of the important geothermal options is called an open loop, which extracts heat from a dedicated water well and returns the water to another well. “If you are in rural Manitoba and need a water well, you can use that same well to extract geothermal energy and drill an extra well to act as a return well. We do a fair bit of that. By nature our first love was drilling for water.”

Friesen says, “Geothermal provides huge cost efficiencies over the long term. In the urban environment, commercial geothermal installations provide huge energy savings in apartment blocks. Commercial arrays work for major manufacturing companies like Bristol Aerospace, which uses high heat processes in manufacturing and they take ground water out for cooling. Acquiring water rights for allows for licensing groundwater systems, a scenario for which we engineer and design systems, be they closed or open loop systems.”

Drills come from various drill manufacturers, and Friesen has a large number of different drills for the variety of jobs the company engages. “My company is now in it since 1892. I’ve been in geothermal since 1972 on the residential side and the commercial side since 1976. In the past five years residential geothermal has exploded into a major part of the business, and it keeps growing as more customers are able to justify the $18,000 to $25,000 upfront costs.”

Sealing the drilled loops is done meticulously with thermal-enhanced grout, which contain very low conductivity values, “We do bore holes up to 600 ft. in Winnipeg and around Manitoba, and the concern is always to preserve ecological integrity of aquifers, separate water tables, and to avoid contamination of fresh water by salt water aquifers.”

He notes, “We have to protect these water tables. Geothermal drillers are going through ground water and grouting creates the security, which takes time and money.” The company does extensive training of drillers, pump installers, and all facets of operations, with a staff of 65, including a hydrologist engineer, “a rare breed. There is lots of competition in the industry. We do a lot of training and skills development in drilling and various technologies.”

Lee Robins of CleanEnergy says, “We provide complete geo-exchange installation on large commercial projects.   The company distributes GeoStar Heat Pumps, which  are available with ten year parts and  labour allowance factory warranties, and a life expectancy of 25 to 30 years,

“Geothermal takes heat out of the ground in winter and releases it into the (building)., During summer it takes the heat from the building and releases to the ground. The dual purpose makes it more efficient - then there’s the type of loop weather it be it an open system, drilled, buried loops, or lake or ocean loops. We have in-house engineers that can provide complete design, energy analysis and life cycle analysis.  They work extensively in commercial projects, estimating proper heat and cooling loads estimating proper heat and cooling loads that contribute to an efficient environmentally friendly system.

Robins says, “The heat gathering loops are designed to serve the equipment, and loops are designed according to geography, as well as financial feasibility. Around the country recreation facilities are using geothermal  adaptations to rinks and halls or swimming pools to exchange heat, moving heat energy from one place for use in another. District loops are very good options wider community-use. I’ve been in geothermal since 1988 and I used to be surprised how long it was taking to get it started. Now the cost of everything related to energy is growing, and the green initiatives are part of the new equations.. Big innovations in efficiencies and quality of materials have made the geothermal investment better than ever.”

Crystal Thibeault is an executive on the board of MGEA and owns International Pipe Manufacture in Selkirk, Manitoba, which markets specialized pipe across Canada to both coasts, from Truro to Bella Coola, and places between like Berens River, Manitoba. Water pipe, electrical pipe, and geothermal pipe. “We put your pipe in the ground and manufacture up six inch pipe, and geothermal uses a technically proficient plastic pipe called high density polyethylene (HDPE)

Housing a not-forgotten issue in Manitoba

Darcy Wood is engaged in policy-making of housing at Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, “We develop housing and infrastructure policies related to First Nation housing and infrastructure. Our programs and policies relate to the ability to meet the needs in communities, and policies arise from the demographics. Our strategy is based on scenarios that include 18 people to a house in communities like Pukatawagon, where people take shifts sleeping.”

Urgency is an understatement with population growing at 2.5 percent per month. “We identified the number of houses on reserve as of May 2011. We found Manitoba has average housing density at 2.5 per household, whereas First Nations averaged 5.7 per household, almost triple the density.” Wood says, “We need 30,000 houses. We also identified the number of adequate houses, and the number of houses with repairs required.”

Wood said, “Major renovations are required and we identified a cost of about $40,000 per unit in repairs, in addition to minor repairs. We have 1,300 condemned units still occupied. The housing backlog has been identified.” Housing costs present AMC with daunting figures, “It costs $150,000 per house to build, and there will be additional costs of $25,000, depending on location,” says Wood. 

“We identified $2.7 billion required for First Nation housing in Manitoba alone.” Wood says, “No government’s gonna do that,” candidly. Indeed, says Wood, “We receive an average of about $22 million per year for housing (or $30 million in a good year), and 80 percent goes to building supplies.”

In a bid to maximize the impact of the money, Nelson House Cree Nation formed Meetah Building Supplies about ten years ago within Nelson House Development Corporation, David Kobliski, general manager. “We are very humble operation, Kobliski says. “Gert Wilzer runs a bulk building purchase program for supplies, and Bands can save 30 percent in the purchase price of building materials and supplies. We opened a Meetah franchise in Onion Lake, Saskatchewan, two years ago.”

Kobliski says, “We structured ourselves to purchase directly though a buying group. Bands buy at reduced cost and Meetah supplies training to on-reserve labour, building the social capital of the First Nations by creating skilled labour. Previous suppliers would come in, drop off materials, and leave, so this is an improved use of the funding .”

Thus, “We purchase direct and pay less and have money to operate the lumber yard, employ community members. We have big populations to serve, and we manufacture doors and cabinets in Nelson House,” more employed skill labour, creating social capital that is needed in capacity building.

Twelve people are employed in manufacturing at Meetah. “We are currently discussion with other First Nations to offer the same opportunities as we have, and the primary benefit is the transfer of knowledge and creation of skills, making employment opportunities in building houses. We have Red Seal apprenticeship carpenter training at the Nelson House facility graduating a few apprentices every year.

“NCN Builders at Nelson House is a Band-owned company that constructs houses. We offer two packages, one is a house with materials , the other is a supplied and constructed house, so one package is supplying the building materials and one is supplying labour with the materials.” They build on reserve housing, an average of 15 units per year. 

“Project development is portable and the other thing we do is build houses for the real estate market in Thompson, Manitoba, design, build, and sell them. The company is doing commercial building, as examples, a restaurant and personal care home in Nelson House.”

The Nelson House company employs 15 full time employees. Onion Lake’s Meetah Building Supplies run their own operations ranging all over Saskatchewan from Onion Lake. “We have non-competition agreements,” said Kobliski, “and strategies in the sales are based on that arrangement.”

Northern Division led by First Nation housing specialists

Olympic Building Supplies has been engaged in First Nations housing since 1991 when they opened a division led by Bob Topp. The company has been putting housing into remote northern communities ever since, often using innovative designs and materials, moving housing by whatever method it takes to get there.

These are ready to move stick-built houses, and they moved housing units to Fort Severn, Ontario, the northern-most community in the province, these containing SIP (structurally insulated panels) built by a manufacturer in Calgary, “The community is using oil heat above the tree line and the federal government pays for the shipping of this at great expense. The EMER CORE building envelope works to upgrade insulation R-values to an R-44, a true value that is three times the norm, and the federal government is willing to pay for using this in the north.

“We have been in building supply doing everything up to post and frame since I joined in 1991 to created and open up the First Nation division. I have been doing First Nation housing projects myself since 1982,” says Topp. “We are two guys running the division both working directly with First Nation communities. The division is now called northern sales, or Wakeegan, and I’ve been doing it long enough for some of the chiefs to remember me from their youth.” 

He says Olympic is always ready to improve design and quality to fit limited budgets or build for extreme weather condition, “SIP Panel engineered systems were delivered to Fort Severn because the  feds pay for heating oil, and we justified the expense by factoring in the amount allowed by CMHC per house. A typical house in that region costs $7000 a year to heat.” 

Over the years Olympic has been engaged with numerous communities, considering Olympic Supply Northern Division contains decades of management experience working with First Nation on various building projects. “We work with design and quality of products and we’ve looked at many new ways and changed a lot of things within our department. We are enthusiastic about new products."

The material-delivered house is built with Olympic designs and plans, and post and frame buildings, or SIP panel building, “Whatever they are calling for we pull it together.  The northern market is a natural play for our company and, in 1991. we concentrated more business development  in northwest Ontario and northern Manitoba."

The company is careful to build financial relationships, "selective in making sure we get paid and jobs are getting done, everything is arranged to move onto site. The division employs five or six guys. Trying to fill a market with good business relationships  and that at the end of the day with projects that stand up to the test of time.”

Relationships and buildings are both long-standing, says Topp, “Jim Moyr and myself have 60 plus years combined, and I will eventually  be replaced by the likes of Andre Bayrack who is here now. He needs four or five years under his belt.”

Topp adds, “We’ve been involved in all types of building. We do multi-housing, band offices, crisis centres, police centres, stores, arenas, and various other buildings. One of the advantages we have our own design departments, taking design to a certain level, short of architecture, functional buildings like funeral homes, gas stations (one of these recently finished at Broken head First Nation).”

He says the commercial and residential and northern market focus will continue, “Another thing we do for First Nation communities is expedite product. We can move equipment and expedite movement of tools, parts, and equipment into communities. Transportation is our real niche. We can FOB to any community so they have a cost based on delivery by either road, winter road, aircraft, barge, rail,  even helicopter," (but that’s not a first choice).

National housing management certification in the works for Aboriginal Housing in Canada

Sylvia Olsen is developing curricula for housing managers to become certified in First Nation housing. “The key goal is establishment of an accredited course in housing management,” says Olsen. The over-arching accreditation will ensue from the First Nation National Housing Managers Association  (FNNHMA).

Olsen comes by her experience in First Nation housing from more than three decades living on Tsarlip Indian Reserve near Victoria, B.C., “I met my husband and moved there when I was 17 years old and I raised my family there,” she says. “It's a very nice place to live. I worked in housing at Tsarlip beginning in the early 1990s.”
     

Olsen is a founding member of the board of FNNHMA in 2006. She worked in provincial and national Aboriginal housing committees over the years. She is doing a Ph.D. in First Nation housing based on the history of Aboriginal housing development in Canada. She has other interests as a storyteller at heart, as a writer-in-residence at Carson Graham School in North Vancouver, B.C.. “I am a member of the Victoria Storytellers Guild.”
     

Olsen works with Mike King at FNNHMA (Housing Manager of Beausoliel First Nation in southern Ontario since 2000), and Nancy Hamilton at Vancouver Island University's Distance Education Department. Mike King describes a bit of FNNHMA history, “We work-shopped the idea of a housing managers certificate program with CMHC when we started the organization in 2006. We received funding from CMHC to visit housing trade shows and conferences, get a website established, and start developing a proper job description for  housing management.”
     

Mike says, “It's really all about property management on-reserve. Property management comes into it because the area of responsibility grows when you consider the tens of millions of dollars in property management we are discussing. It involves rents, mortgages, and asset management. A lot of these administrative functions are being done on a part-time basis. Much more needs to be done.”
     

Success is in the wind, says Olsen, “We have developed the Housing Managers Certificate Program 101.” The first module of FNNHMA certification has been delivered. It was piloted in three locations around B.C. in 2008/09. Fifteen students took the course in Nanaimo, and other classes were held in Terrace and Kamloops.
     

She was the initial facilitator teaching the course. Now the graduates are chomping at the bit to get the rest of the certification, “A complete curricula will include finance, administration, communications, and construction management,” she says. “Once it is all put together, VIU will work-up the details on national certification.”
     

The Atlantic provinces  also received pilot programs from FNNHMA, “We delivered pilot courses in Moncton and Halifax. We are now shore-to-shore with the program. There is strong interest in Quebec and Ontario Aboriginal housing, and we are working out the language questions for FNNHMA to certify in Quebec. We feel the urgency to get the whole thing going on a national basis.”
     

The curricula should be complete by the end of this year, she says. The way it stands VIU is now ready to deliver Housing Administration course one and two, and the course on finance is well underway. The course on communications is at hand, and Olsen will commence writing the last module on construction before the end of winter.
     

“We will be done in 2010,” she says, “VIU is really dedicated to developing this program. They are applying for extra funds and showing themselves to be an exceptional school. At the same time they recognize it is FNNHMA's initiative.” The FNNHMA certificate will be delivered at other universities like the Aboriginal department of a college in Sault St. Marie, Ontario.
     

One of the main battles for FNNHMA is to establish appropriate financial remuneration for these certified housing managers. “Finding the wage for certified housing managers is one of the challenges. You have precedents out there but a great deal depends on the financial state of the Band.” Even so, “Across Canada we have some of the most amazing people working in housing management on reserve,” and she notes, “The force of their expertise and a certification process will help make housing management certification a national reality."
     

Housing on-reserve is changing. “Lots of people are working to resolve the structural issues in First Nation housing. Poverty remains the main problem in housing.  Another problem is that housing remains entirely government-run,” whereas other social activities like health and education have been taken over by the First Nations. “Aboriginal housing will eventually be,” sooner rather than later, she says, “under the direct control of  First Nation leadership.”
     

FNNHMA is composed primarily of a board of directors at present. “We took a run at creating membership when we started the organization. Now we have the foothold to started a second membership drive. It has been a huge project to get a certified housing managers program and we have worked hard to get this production done. To roll it out nationally is cumbersome but it will become part of the whole group of housing organizations in this country.”