Tsawout First Nation

Tswaout First Nation is located on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, and is one of five bands that constitute the Saanich Nation. In 2022, the Nation engaged Community Power in the hopes of reducing energy costs and improving housing conditions within its community. With funding support from Vancity, Community Power developed a Multi-Year Housing Upgrade Plan™ (MYHUP) to improve the comfort, safety, efficiency, and durability of 22 homes selected by the Nation.  

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The Multi-Year Housing Plan identifies, prioritizes, and highlights actionable steps the Nation can take to repair and upgrade homes. By providing the Nation with estimated costs for housing renovations and energy efficiency upgrades, community leadership can more easily apply to provincial, utility, and federal funding programs. The strategic Plan also highlights local economic development opportunities that keep housing work within the community.

Community Power’s trained assessors began the project by conducting comprehensive housing assessments to identify energy savings opportunities and assess each homes’ building components and energy systems. Leveraging this data, Community Power then completed Detailed Energy and Housing Assessment Reports for each of the 22 homes. In addition to a comprehensive list of recommendations and modelling results, each assessment report provides an implementation cost estimate to support planning and budgeting efforts.  

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The results from each home were then summarized in the Multi-Year Housing Upgrade Plan, which includes the total costs required for community-wide upgrades, the potential for energy savings and greenhouse gas emissions reductions, IHCI score, the urgency of repairs, and other details the community deemed valuable.  

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Finally, Tswaout First Nation and Community Power co-hosted a local engagement with residents whose homes were assessed and included in the Multi-Year Housing Upgrade Plan. This allowed residents to ask questions and express concerns, while providing Community Power with additional insights into housing challenges faced by the community.