Round 3: Housing supply challenge

Northern Access Round: Supply Chain Solutions for Northern and Remote Housing

Thank you for your interest in the Housing Supply Challenge.

Find out who made it to the final stage!

The Housing Supply Challenge is now closed.

What is the Northern Access Round?

The Northern Access Round seeks solutions that reduce the time, cost, and risk to access resources for building and maintaining appropriate northern and remote housing supply.

The Northern Access Round has a pool of up to $80M to fund and implement ideas that address supply chain barriers.

Improving the supply chain will reduce the cost to build, operate and maintain housing in northern and remote regions.

Inefficient supply chains put northern and remote housing at risk of rapid deterioration and severely constrain new housing development.

In northern and remote regions, the supply chain deals with various factors that make accessing materials and resources a challenge. The effects of these factors on housing supply vary widely and include:

Remote building sites that receive incorrect or damaged materials cannot return them and order new supplies within timelines and budgets, and using the wrong materials lowers the quality of housing.
The risk of unforeseen events is high in northern and remote projects, which results in high contingency funds for developers, contributing to the high cost per square foot.
Land-locked (fly-in fly-out) communities face cargo limitations of the aircraft capable of servicing short gravel airstrips, limiting the quantity of materials and equipment for building.
The window for transport by ice road is getting increasingly shorter with climate change. Sea shipping is also limited to short seasonal operations.
Planning and spending must occur long before building.

A wide range of solutions can improve efficient and affordable access to materials and resources in northern and remote regions.

Solutions relevant to this Round include:

transportation and logistical solutions that improve access to building materials and resources
solutions to increase accessibility to fly in, fly out communities
solutions to improve the feasibility of climate adaptation and culturally appropriate techniques
capacity and training solutions that address the high cost and limited access to skilled workers
technology solutions that enhance or expand existing infrastructure
innovative approaches to the handling, shipping, and storing of materials
alternative methods for financing land development and construction
local, community-driven solutions that reduce dependency on the supply chain

Objectives

Eligibility

The following professionals and organizations are encouraged to apply:

Supply chain professionals
For-profit and not-for-profit organizations
Indigenous governments, organizations, and groups
Canadian post-secondary institutions
Governments (provincial, territorial, Indigenous, municipal, local and regional)
Teams composed of a variety of participants

All applicants must be affiliated with a legally incorporated organization.

Additional support for northern or remote applicants

Northern and remote individuals, communities, and organizations, especially Indigenous governments, organizations and groups are eligible to participate in the Northern Ideas Development Program to receive support to develop their application.

Apply to participate with one of these options:

A supply chain solution that you would like to explore further
A problem that you would like support with, to identify potential solutions

Visit the Northern Ideas Development Program for northern and remote residents to get guidance, mentorship and resources needed to develop and improve your application. You can also reach out to our partner by email or by phone at 1-800-403-4525 for any questions regarding your application.

Industry Professionals

Your supply chain experience is valuable!

If you’re working in the supply chain or in the logistics industry, your experience puts you in a key position to know the challenges faced and even possible solutions. We want to hear from you and work with you on your ideas. We have $80M in funding and the Northern Access Round offers the perfect opportunity to share your knowledge and experience in your area.

Visit the Housing Supply Challenge Support Program to get guidance, mentorship and resources needed to develop and improve your submission. Our friends at Evergreen are available to answer any questions about the application process and provide one-on-one support.

Contact Evergreen today.