Alongside sustainability, affordability, and accessibility, cultural relevance is a key consideration in designing appropriate First Nations housing. Recognizing the many cultural and environmental distinctions between communities, this article explores shared housing principles that foster community well-being. It also touches on how sustainability and accessibility are integral to culturally appropriate housing.
Fostering Connections Across Generations
Inherently valuable as human beings, elders may be recognized as the binding thread of a community’s socio-economic fabric. Older community members may bring many skills to create a thriving, culturally rich environment for adults and children.
The community stories, knowledge, cultural practices, and language that elders may share are vital to cultural transmission and building pride in children, youth, and adults. If a home is lucky enough to house a language speaker, it can be a hub for language revitalization.
Seniors have had a lifetime to adapt to living situations and responsibilities and may be a source of advice on parenting, harvesting, relationships, leadership, governance, and other matters. Depending on their abilities, they may assist with household duties like childcare, food preparation, maintenance, and repairs.
Most importantly for families with children, elders in a home may create a sense of stability. Having someone often home to listen, empathize, advise, teach, and offer discipline or a hug is a nurturing part of a strong social support network.
Caring for seniors teaches patience, humility, responsibility, and respect. It impacts how people treat themselves and others while ensuring that elders are cared for well.
Communal Living Is Culture
Indigenous homes have traditionally included multiple generations. The concept of the nuclear family, where only parents and their children live together, is a colonial disruption that distanced children from their elders and removed support for aging community members. It also increased demands on parents who may have shared responsibilities like childcare, elder care, cooking, preservation, cleaning, home repair, and harvesting with other family members. Although some of these duties may be shared between households, housing availability may have put distance between homes that would have neighboured.
Communal living doesn’t just benefit children, parents, elders, and those requiring physical support. Individuals have gifts and contributions that may go unused or unrecognized while living alone. Those who are grieving, experiencing homelessness, or practicing an independent lifestyle may find value and purpose in contributing to a family.
Action to restore multigenerational living spaces is fuelled by honouring responsibilities to extended kin, strengthening support systems, and passing on culture and values. It also reflects ways of being where we take only what we need – and share the rest.
Space For Everyone
A welcoming space includes everyone, including those with disabilities or injuries. Ramps, handrails, and wide halls and doorways offer movability for people using wheelchairs, crutches, or walkers. Placing all bedrooms on the same level as the kitchen and shared spaces allows family members to check in on children, elders, and those who may require assistance at night. Installing a walk-in shower or bathtub with a seat is a good safety measure and increases independence for those with limited mobility.
Communal spaces in a home should allow multiple households to gather, preferably in a circle. This may be used for beading, sewing, celebrating an occasion, or simply visiting over tea. Cultural and spiritual practices can also take place around an outdoor fire.
Living With The Land
Many Indigenous-designed dwellings feature an easy circulation between indoor and outdoor, reflecting the frequent use of outdoor space. From chopping wood to shovelling snow, frequent activities take place outside.
Space for a garden can increase food security, save money, and provide access to traditional foods and medicines. Without adequate soil, vegetables, herbs and medicines may be grown in planter boxes. The more people in the home who can pitch in with labour and care and the more space available, the larger and more nourishing the garden may be.
Composting systems honour traditional values by ensuring that nothing harvested is unused or wasted. Employing catchment systems for gathering and using rainwater follows the same principles.
A separate enclosed area, like a shed, is ideal for storing and preparing foods like fish and game. Freezer space is wonderful for preserving foods during the warmer months.
A sauna or sweat lodge may promote good health or hold a ceremony. As with large gathering spaces, many households could share these spaces.
Improving the ability to live with the land connects people to their ancestors and contributes to holistic well-being. Culturally appropriate homes facilitate traditional ways of living and practices that build community, self-reliance, and self-worth.
Using What’s At Hand
Building homes with nearby materials makes sense on a few levels. First, it’s traditional to use what’s at hand. Second, what’s nearby is also the most resilient and sustainable for the regional environment. Third, Indigenous locals are employed by businesses that gather and sell lumber, gravel, and stone.
Homes Made To Last
Before colonization, objects were made with great craftsmanship that lasted for many generations, and some homes were erected and disassembled with the seasons. Today, many households spend most of the year in one house, and new technologies preserve the items we value.
Investing in homes made with high-quality materials reflects both the modern lifestyle and the traditional values of caring for what we have. Using non-traditional materials may reduce costs or protect beautiful traditional elements like wood beams and embellishments. For example, a housing project at Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek was constructed with wood but used metal sheeting to increase the lifespan of roofs and reduce maintenance needs.
Planning For The Future
Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek’s housing project won a Community Housing Recognition Award at the 18th Annual First Nations Housing Conference in 2020. The conference awards excellence in First Nations-led housing initiatives every year to promote innovative solutions to First Nations housing challenges. The designs built by Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek are an excellent example of how wide hallways, doorways, and accessible bathrooms are standard when prioritizing keeping elders at home.
This February 2025, the First Nations Market Housing Fund (FNMHF), key industry leaders, government officials, and community experts will gather in Thunder Bay under the theme of “Exploring Challenges. Empowering Sustainability” to network and share ideas around sustainable and culturally appropriate housing.
Improving housing and establishing priorities for housing development are Indigenous rights under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The FNMHF will continue to support the approaches developed by First Nations to meet community needs and foster community well-being and cultural wellness.ficant, it’s crucial to recognize that Indigenous Peoples have an inherent right to the wealth generated within Canada. True economic success will be reflected in achieving socioeconomic parity for First Nations and their ability to invest sustainably in language, culture, and sovereignty.
Infrastructure and housing form the foundation of the support structures necessary for Indigenous-led economic development. By taking concrete action and engaging with partner organizations and housing market stakeholders, the FNMHF will continue to work for improved access to sustainable, adequate housing and homeownership for First Nations on reserve.