Funding Sovereignty: Lessons from the IHII Accelerator Funding Pilot Project - INTERN

Funding Sovereignty: Lessons from the IHII Accelerator Funding Pilot Project

This webinar was part of the RAIC 2021 Virtual Conference on Architecture and the RAIC Internation and Indigenous Architecture and Design Symposium

Topics: Indigenous Voices, Architecture Design

Length: 1 hour | What's Included: Video, Quiz, and Certificate of Completion 

This webinar is available to stream! 

Making Room for New Indigenous Voices on the Leading Edge of Architecture Practice

This presentation will review the successes and lessons from a new approach to funding, represented by a funding pilot project. IHII (Indigenous Homes Innovation Initiative) is a five-year $36 million federal program funded by Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) and Infrastructure Canada, delivered in partnership with the Council for the Advancement of Native Development Officers (CANDO). We will explore issues of funding sovereignty, Indigenous agency, and a proactive vs. reactive method of funding capital projects by and for Indigenous peoples. 

A majority of Indigenous architecture is federally funded, therefore policy decisions, application protocols, and selection criteria used to fund on-reserve and Indigenous projects are crucial to Indigenous peoples’ sovereignty and our ability to impact our own built environments. Wanda Dalla Costa and Eladia Smoke are two “Mentors” from a pool of Indigenous architects who were asked to support the implementation of projects funded under IHII Accelerator. In this unprecedented approach to funding  ndigenous housing in Canada, ISC reached out to Indigenous individuals and entities from across the country to invite innovative ideas for housing initiatives. Particularly noteworthy, the call was open-ended and included project types that may otherwise not fall into  historically established funding categories. 

In an Indigenous-led approach, 24 projects were selected from 342 respondents by a committee of Indigenous housing experts, and funding administered by an Indigenous-led entity, CANDO. Indigenous architects were involved from inception in a mentorship role to help advocate for and support innovators, to move projects toward implementation. Entrusting Indigenous peoples to determine funding priorities and protocols from policy inception to project implementation is a necessary foundation to establish a built environment  that supports Indigenous sovereignty, responds to the TRC Calls to Action, and begins to address the priorities of UNDRIP. Funding reform is the first step to confront systemic racism and decolonize the process of undertaking capital projects by and for Indigenous peoples. This is our experience with one of the first funding structures ever to attempt this shift.

Subject Matter Experts

Eladia Smoke, OAA, OAQ, MAA, M.Arch., B.Env.Des., LEED®A.P. / Principal Architect, Smoke Architecture Inc., Laurentian University, RAIC ITF

Wanda Dalla Costa, Masters of Architecture, AIA, OAA, AAA, SAA, LEED A.P. / Institute Professor (ASU); Principal (Tawaw Architecture Collective)