Housing

Housing Policy Development 

In the comprehensive community planning process, better understanding of the housing application and selection process was asked for in the 4 communities that GGC works with. GGC has followed up with this, working in partnership with the 4 communities to host a Housing Forum. One of the most well received presentations at the Housing Forum was the BC Hydro Power Smart presentation; learning energy saving tips for your home was well received...click here to view it. The final report of the Housing Forum summarizing members feedbacks, can be found here. 

Recently the Working Group and band administrations have participated in a CMHC Community Housing Policy workshop and have now formally begun working with the communities to update and develop a core Gitksan housing policy. The housing policy will have four main sections or chapters:

1. social housing (subsidized housing)
2. band rent to own and rental homes
3. privatley owned homes
4. renovation policy for existing homes.

sample brochure. 

In partnership with UBC Indigenous Planning program, 2 students helped pull together a community education presentation and 4 brochures about on reserving housing. These brochures will be updated once the Gitksan Housing policies are in final format and approved by Councils. A program over of all the on reserve housing program is available, for the draft document click here.  (it's large 3.59 MB)

The GGC Board has reviewed and finalized the policy! Implementation of the policy will be the next focus for the next months. Gitanyow, Gitanmaax, Glen Vowell and Kispiox are now reviewing the final version of accepting the Gitksan Housing Policy.  

Core Housing Need

From the housing survey and housing analysis report was completed. This report talks about the core housing needs of each community. Core housing identifies suitability (overcrowding and multiple family living), adequate housing (homes that need minimal or major repairs) and afffordability (levels of income of community members). GGC with the bands are following the National Occupancy Standards (or NOS) to identify the levels of overcrowding in each home.

A visual infographic has been completed to illustrate the level of Core Housing need for each community as well. Thank you to Sparc BC for assisting us in putting this visual document together. We will be updating these inforgraphic housing sheets to see how much we have improved since 2011! Hopefully we can get this done this year, 2017. We have been making progress with Gitanyow Housing updates. 

Please call GGC for more information.