Francine Doxtator is on a search for used tires. For months, the softly spoken 56-year-old has asked everyone she knows — and anyone new she meets — if they happen to have any lying around.
“I tell them to just drop ’em off,” she said, motioning to the hundreds of tires haphazardly piled almost 1m high behind her trailer.
Starting this week, these tires and hundreds more donated by an auto shop will be packed with dirt and stacked neatly to form the backbone of Doxtator’s new house — an off-the-grid home being touted as a potential solution to the housing crises facing many First Nations communities across Canada.
Illustration: Constance Chou
When Doxtator found out two years ago that she had been selected to receive a new, donated home, she did not believe it. Her current home is a rickety trailer — condemned years ago — that sits on a leafy, green lot on the Six Nations of The Grand River reserve, about 88km southwest of Toronto. Its weathered blue and white facade has been chewed at by rust and blankets cover its cracked windows. Inside, the trailer has been ravaged by mice and black mould. A leaky roof and several holes in the trailer send cold air whipping through the cramped space in the winter, while on this summer day it is stiflingly hot inside.
“There’s seven of us staying in here,” said Doxtator, who helps care for her five grandchildren and daughter who has a debilitating spinal cord injury.
Three of her grandsons sleep in one room, while her 17-year-old granddaughter has a small room to herself. Doxtator, her daughter and one of her grandsons sleep in the living room.
“We’re all looking forward to the new home,” she said with a smile. “But I still don’t believe it’s happening.”
In the next two weeks, on a small hill just steps away from her trailer, her new home will begin to take shape. Designed by US-based company Earthship Biotecture, the C$75,000 (US$57,148) sustainable home promises to do away with her monthly utility bills, which eat up about C$150 per month out of her social assistance check.
Instead, solar panels on the roof will supply electricity and rainwater will be collected in a cistern and cycled through the house for drinking, showering, toilets and feeding plants. The tires will be used to create a dense thermomass to help regulate the temperature of the home.
While several of these homes — known as earthships — have sprung up across Canada in recent years, this will be the company’s first time building one on a First Nations reserve in Canada. It is an idea that has been years in the making, said Michael Reynolds, the architect who has been championing self-sustaining homes made of recycled materials for 45 years.
The company regularly carries out humanitarian builds around the world, in countries such as India, Haiti and Sierra Leone. When he came across stories of First Nations families braving below freezing temperatures in tents or makeshift sheds with no water or electricity, Reynolds added Canada to the list, hoping to showcase earthship homes as a low-cost means of addressing the housing shortages that plague many of Canada’s First Nations communities.
The build comes just as the Liberal government, led by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, promised in its most recent budget to invest C$554 million in First Nations housing over the next two years.
“Really, all government housing is junk. They’re not made with people in mind,” Reynolds said. “This housing that we make is made to take care of people. Feed them, keep them warm, with no utility bills.”
His eventual goal is to take the project farther north, to the remote First Nations communities where stories of 15 or more people living in cramped, mould-ridden homes have become the norm. The project on Six Nations is his gateway; demonstrating the homes’ — developed in Taos, New Mexico, at an altitude of 2,133m above sea level — resilience in the face of a Canadian winter.
“I’m confident right now that nobody will freeze to death in one of these buildings, even in northern Canada,” Reynolds said.
The company is covering some of the cost of Doxtator’s new house.
Forty interns have signed on to take part in the building, each contributing at least C$1,000 toward the project and adding to the thousands of dollars raised by a string of fundraisers.
Ten people from the Six Nations of The Grand River reserve will also participate in the build.
“I really don’t know what to expect,” said Matt Hill, one of the First Nations volunteers. “I’m really curious to see how it’s going to work out.”
The goal is to create a team of qualified First Nations volunteers who can then help others who want to replicate the project; a vital knowledge transfer given 2013 figures that showed 37 percent of First Nations homes are in a state of disrepair, 23 percent are overcrowded and just over half are blighted with mould and mildew.
Waiting lists for new housing have become ubiquitous among most First Nations communities. In Doxtator’s community of about 12,000 people, about a third of residents are on the list with most waiting between five to 10 years for a new home.
The idea of earthships as a panacea to address some of the housing demand on First Nations communities is complicated by the strict building codes that govern new builds on reserves, Hill said. Given the lack of real-estate market on the reserves, leaders are instead focused on ensuring homes are built to last as long as possible.
Also, as some models of earthships do not qualify for traditional mortgages or home loans, the estimated C$60,000 cost of replicating the house being built for Doxtator remains prohibitive to many.
As she prepares to move into her new house, Doxtator envisions it as a model that will help push past some of these complications.
“I would love to see this happen for more people,” Doxtator said softly.
First Nations communities are a perfect fit for these trailblazing homes, she added.
“We try and respect Mother Earth. Right now we’re ruining her. We have to look after her so she can look after us,” Doxtator said.
Glancing at the pile of tires, her only hesitation is a superficial one — what exactly would a home built on these principles look like?
With a laugh she added: “I just hope it doesn’t look like a Flintstones house in the end.”
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