K5T NDIT Grant

The Project

Meraki was contracted by Kitselas Five Tier System to prepare a comprehensive grant application package in response to the Northern Development Initiative Trust’s Northern Healthy Community’s Capacity Building Fund. The grant was focused on hiring a Student Housing Manager to work with the K5T Executive Director to oversee the development of a student housing project, including site preparation and construction, for both the temporary and long-term units. Once construction is complete, the Student Housing Manager will continue with on-going property management tasks, such as supporting tenants, coordinating maintenance and repairs, and maintaining financial records. The Student Housing Manager will provide full-time support to ensure day-to-day operations are run in a professional, supportive, culturally informed, and efficient manner. See attached Student Housing Manager job description for further details.

There is a major housing crisis in the Northwest region of BC, particularly among Indigenous communities. Large-scale economic development projects, such as LNG Canada and Coastal GasLink, have brought large numbers of people into our communities and options for housing are severely limited. K5T participants and workers are being housed in hotels and motels, which is not conducive to a learning environment and detracts from those businesses’ primary uses. Housing continues to be a significant barrier to Indigenous community members in the region to receiving skills training and therefore employment on these large-scale economic projects.