ʔaqantⱡaʔnam (Housing)
Housing Goal: Co-operatively design, build, and maintain housing that is durable, environmentally friendly, and suited to the needs of families and individuals.
Objective 1: Create opportunities to gain ownership of housing and land.
Objective 2: Design and build a variety of types of quality homes that are environmentally friendly, energy efficient and water conserving, maximizing the use of local materials, skills and labour.
Objective 3: Develop community capacity and skills for home building, ownership, maintenance and repairs.
Objective 4: Manage community-owned housing in a way that is equitable and fair.
There are currently 60 houses on-reserve and 8 Band-operated homes. The ʔaq̓am Organization in conjunction with the First Nation’s Market Housing Fund has develop a Market Based Housing Program which gives members the ability to access traditional financing options to obtain mortgages on-reserve to purchase homes, renovate existing homes, construct new homes and construct rental homes. The ʔaq̓am Organization is in partnership with BC Housing, this partnership will create capacity within the organization and community through supports in basic maintenance workshops, asset management software training, financial planning and many other resources available through BC Housing.
The Department of Operations continues to work with Partners such as Columbia Basin Trust, Clean Technology Community Gateways and Indigenous Service Canada to assist homeowners with application and project management of a number of Renovations and Retrofit Programs that provide support to existing homeowners on-reserve to increase the life expectancy of the units and provide barrier free accessibility. These partnerships also offer supports for accessing todays most efficient ways to build and move forward with culturally appropriate, healthy, safe and energy efficient housing, built to the needs of the ʔaqa̓mnik people.
First Nations Market Housing Fund
The First Nation Market Based housing program has been developed in conjunction with the First Nations Market Housing Fund and approved lenders.
The objective of the program is to provide community members access to affordable and competitive mortgages and loans in order to build, purchase, renovate or refinance homes on First Nation lands.
The following loan options are offered by ʔaq̓am through the Market Based Housing Program:
New Construction Owner-Occupied
New Construction for Rental Purposes
Purchase of an Existing Unit Owner Occupied
Purchase of an Existing Unit for Rental Purposes
Renovation
Refinancing
A Housing Program that provides competitive and affordable loans that work for YOU!
If you are interested in learning more, please call Alicia Phillips, Housing and Operations Coordinator at (778) 761-0679 ext. 3580
Related content:
First Nations Market Housing Fund
BC Housing https://www.bchousing.org/projects-partners/Building-BC/IHF-program
Columbia Basin Trust https://ourtrust.org/
