October 20, 2025 • 52 mins
Indigenous communities have struggles in maintaining the Housing needs for their community. Common issues are Housing Managers are overburdened and under-resourced, this model is unsustainable. But despite the countless programs and funding available, many communities remain stuck in crisis mode. Inspector in a Box is a practical, tech-enabled program that provides the tools, training, and capacity building. This program was created to fill a major gap. Inspector in a Box, changes that.
ASharpe Outlook is broadcast live Mondays at 8AM PT on K4HD Radio - Hollywood Talk Radio (www.k4hd.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). ASharpe Outlook TV Show is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).
ASharpe Outlook Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/asharpe-outlook--6643730/support.
ASharpe Outlook is broadcast live Mondays at 8AM PT on K4HD Radio - Hollywood Talk Radio (www.k4hd.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). ASharpe Outlook TV Show is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).
ASharpe Outlook Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/asharpe-outlook--6643730/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
This program is designed to provide general information with regards
to the subject matters covered. This information is given with
the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors or station
are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial,
legal counseling, professional service, or any advice.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
You should seek the services.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Hello and thank you for tuning in to a Sharp
Outlook on p for HD Radio and Talk or TV.
I am ANGELA Sharp your host. Our arm chair discussions
with industry experts will give you the steps, tools and
information to be successful in business and to prepare you
to be your best self. Hello and welcome to a
(00:56):
Sharp Outlook. Today we're going to have a very exciting
discussion on the topic of Indigenous communities and their housing
departments and meeting the needs of the community members. And
today's title is Inspector in a Box and when my
guest joins, we will be discussing what is in the box.
(01:22):
Indigenous communities have struggles in maintaining the housing for their
community members. Common issues are housing managers are overburdened and
under resourced, often forced to do the work of multiple
departments alone. That model is unsustainable. The solution to these
(01:42):
common issues is what we will be discussing today. We
want to bring you sustainable solutions to your communities. But
despite the countless programs and funding announcements, many communities remain
stuck and in crisis mode. And that's where Inspector in
a Box will come in and be able to make
(02:04):
things so much better for you. It is a practical,
tech enabled program that provides Indigenous communities with the tools, training,
and capacity building. This program was created to fill a
major gap. Many Indigenous communities lack access to qualified inspectors,
cost estimators, or the internal capacity to manage repairs, renovations
(02:30):
and retrofits. The result misfunding, delayed projects and unsafe homes.
Inspector in a Box changes that. It delivers a ready
to deploy system that empowers communities to take control of
their housing programs. The program itself was created to fill
(02:55):
that gap, and it will deliver it ready to deploy
system that empowers communities to take control of their housing
programs without relying on costly external consultants. Through hands on
training and easy to use technology, local candidates are equipped
(03:15):
to complete full housing expections, generate class beat cost estaments,
create scopes of work and photo documentation, identify energy retrofute
fit opportunities, prepare funding applications, conduct building condition assessments, and
(03:35):
become their own businesses. It's not a service to do
the work for the Housing department, but to provide scalable,
sustainable and community driven housing solutions. Inspector in a Box
is a capacity building model. By training local candidates and
leveraging user friendly systems, communities gain the power to manage
(04:00):
housing projects independently and effectively. Inspector in a Box is
a cutting edge solution designed to build housing capacity within
Indigenous communities in Canada and the United States. This is
such an incredible topic. I would like to invite Stan
(04:24):
Zachary Knight, who is our guest, to talk about this
impressive project and product that is available for Indigenous communities.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Hello Stan, good morning Angela. Thank you for having me today.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Well, I'm going to read your bio here. You are
a proud member of the Opaskoyak Free Nation in Northern Manitoba.
You grew up witnessing the direct impact of substandard housing
in indigenous communities that experience has stayed with you throughout
(05:05):
your life and inspired a career committed real change. The
journey has taken you through diverse roles our CMP officer,
building supply store manager, insurance adjuster, and certified home inspector,
all of which gave you deep practical understanding of the
(05:26):
housing challenges that face Indigenous people. But despite the countless
programs and funding announcements, many communities remained stuck in crisis mode.
Two years ago, you made a conscious decision to fully
dedicate energy and talents to Indigenous housing solutions. You relocated
(05:47):
your family to British Columbia and immersed yourself in Indigenous
housing ecosystem. It didn't take long to see a common group.
Housing managers are overburdened and under resource, often forced to
do the work of multiple departments. That is unsustainable, as
I mentioned in the description, and it's part of the
(06:10):
idea for something better. Zachary Knight Enterprises Limited with one
mission to create scalable, sustainable and community driven housing solutions.
Inspector in a Box isn't just a service as a
capacity building model, and I would like to talk about
(06:30):
Inspector in a Box. So what gave you that idea.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Well.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
One of the things like when we first moved out
to BC, we always understood there was issues with indigenous
housing and just the same consistency of poor products, poor design,
poor construction methods, predatory nature contractors. And when we came
out to BC, we believed that we had to be
(07:04):
involved within the First Nation organization or Indigenous community organizations
to be impactful in the role. So I took positions
within various housing departments, and I saw consistency in the programs.
It was the fact that housing departments are just they're understaffed,
(07:24):
they're poorly trained, they don't have the resources or the
capacity to actually move housing programs forward in a more
reactive nature. Of the position they spend most of their
days is putting out fires and not really moving real
housing programs forward. So we kind of came up with
the idea that, all right, let's make something that moves
(07:51):
inspections and gets housing repairs moving forward, but let's do
it in a more autonomous nature where we don't further
burden a housing manage or a housing department with babysitting
a program. So we came up with the idea that
we offer inspector in a box. We provide all the
(08:11):
training necessary to do the work, to do the inspections
and do the scopes of work, costs estimates, and energy
rebate programming and funding applications. But the nation or the
community maintains the autonomy and the sovereignty of that process.
So the process that we've come up with is the
(08:35):
community identifies the candidate they want to train, they give
us the initial list of thirty houses they want to inspect,
and we take it from there. We trained the candidate
to do the home inspections and do the work, and
within the first three months we hand over thirty complete inspections.
And then in those inspections, we identify what's wrong with
(08:58):
the house, what it to fix it, and the steps
needed to actually do the repairs. And then we asked
the community, Okay, we've completed your inspections. We're in the
process of training your candidate to fully assume the role
that we are doing for this short inter process, and
they we ask them to identify five or ten units
(09:21):
that they want to start repairs on, and we actually
do the funding applications to seek and secure the funding
to get those renovations started, So.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
This kind of supports local job creation. Also, I mean
it can foster intergenerational wealth and ensure more more housing
dollars stay in the community. So it's more than just
you going in there Mike getting I don't probably don't
get the little hammer out and things like that. But
(09:56):
you know, you're not just going in there fixing the problems.
You're training people there in the community to be able
to do this long term.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Yeah, that's the whole idea of the whole program is
like to maintain ownership and sovereignty of the process. And
so we like, even though I'm indigenous, Like I'm indigenous
from Northern Manitoba, I don't understand Inuit culture. I'm not
from it, like the Inuit culture. I'm not from the
BC Indigenous cultures, Meti culture. So even being indigenous, I
(10:33):
shouldn't be in the role of a housing manager making
those decisions on what's a culturally relevant, relevant solution to
my community. So what we're trying to do is provide
the tools and then I identify a local candidate that
can bring that culture and history into the mix and
(10:54):
provide those answers. But we just provide the tools for
them to be able to achieve the results.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
That's incredible. I mean, I've worked with Indigenous communities in
several capacities, and one of the things that I'm aware
of is the housing department and the fact that just
being able to establish self determination and economic empowerment and
building the future for you know, members of the indigenous
(11:25):
community is just an incredible idea. I mean, a lot
of people go in and they provide services, but they
don't leave the knowledge they're in the community, so it's
just a constant, you know, outlay of money outside of
the community, so it doesn't help to build that community.
(11:46):
And you know, with the Inspector in the Box, you're
you're not only helping the members that need their houses
worked on, but you are changing lives because you're creating
opportunities for jobs and that those people in the community
that are being paid to maintain those homes and and
(12:08):
now their families are going to learn, you know, different skills.
I don't know what all skills are involved. I haven't
had to repair a house, so I'm not sure everything
that's involved. But tell me more about you know, this
Inspector in the Box, it's you say that it's scalable,
so you can just go out to different communities.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yes, So the idea is we actually train a community
member to take to do the work and take over
the role. And like the whole idea behind the process
is that we work ourselves out of the job and
so eventually that the local candidate becomes that person that
does the work. But we when we started this whole
(12:54):
process and talking to Indigenous communities across Canada and getting
their feedback about the program and some of the gaps
in what we were offering, we actually started looking at
the entire indigenous construction economy in terms of just specifically
for new construction for houses and renovation repair of houses,
(13:16):
and we wanted to actually set a valuation for that
ecosystem and see how much money goes into that stream
of funding and kind of what the social impacts of
that would be. And so there's no hard and fast reports,
so it was all empirical data we gathered from different
organizations and community groups. We set a valuation about two
(13:40):
billion dollars in Canada goes into the indigenous construction economy
for new construction and renovation repair and right now eighty
to ninety percent of that actually leaves in the pockets
and consultants and contractors who have no vested interest in
the economic development of those communities that they're working with.
And so we started looking at that and saying, well,
(14:02):
what can we do to change that. How can we
retain more of that wealth within the indigenous community and
bolster the economy of that community. And so we looked
at it and there was three aspects that we kind
of identified that we wanted to focus on with our
Inspector in the Box program. One is education, so we've
(14:24):
in twenty twenty six we're going to be launching an
Indigenous scholarship program for four year degree programs as well
as two year trade programs to really bring about that
educational component that's missing. Their aspect is an Indigenous Business
incubator because Indigenous people when they start a business, they
(14:46):
have unique aspects that they have to address within starting
a business because like taxation issues is a big issue
on Indigenous even advertising social media, like we we have
a different and target audience, and our target audience lives
in different formats and where the general non Indigenous public lives.
(15:11):
Educate our or financing, banking kind of just all the
understanding all the aspects that takes to stand up a
business on indigenous community. So we started focusing on developing
an Indigenous business incubator, and then the third and final
step was capital investment. We actually wanted to focus our
(15:33):
capital investment efforts into asking the question do you have
community supports? And if you have community support, you're ninety
nine percent more likely to succeed as a business. We
didn't want to be tied to that that agile question
what's your credit score, because that's been a really detrimental
question to Indigenous communities across Canada and the US. So
(15:56):
we're focusing capital investment just to say, yeah, do you
have community support? And if you have community supports, we
will help. We'll do our best to help you. And
those are the three aspects that we're diverting a lot
of our revenue firm, our Inspector in the Box program
into those three to fully to fully grow the Indigenous
(16:19):
economy across Canada and US.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Yeah, yeah, that's really important, especially if they're going to
be starting businesses. Besides knowing their trade, that they're going
to be doing, just like you said, meeting all of
those regulatory requirements to be able to stay in business
and not being afraid or setting up a nice you know,
(16:43):
bookkeeping system for them. I know, one of the projects
that I worked with was going out and doing financial
literacy training and indigenous communities here in the US, and
that's been going on since two thousand seven, two thousand
(17:03):
and eight, two thousand and nine, and like five years.
We spent you know, having conferences going we did train
to trainers, so we had trainers out there just you know,
going all over the country you know, at the same
time and just hitting all of the communities and doing
(17:24):
financial literacy training and train the trainers. And it also
helped for those that are getting for capita. They have
to take financial literacy before they're able to get those funds,
and so they understand what to do with them and
they're keeping more of the money instead of making bad decisions.
So yeah, this is really getting you know, better by
(17:47):
the minute here, Stan, You're really thinking about this whole aspect,
and that's that's really incredible. And so I understand your
reasoning for wanting to use this inspector in the box
and instead of bringing other professionals in, like you said,
contractors and they come in the cost is generally pretty high,
(18:12):
and then they walk away and there's no no education,
no knowledge, and so you're constantly having to you know,
bring them in and knowledge. As I had another guest
on knowledge is power, and so you're wanting to In fact,
(18:33):
it's probably more valuable than just ash at the time
because you retain knowledge for a long time and you're
able to just continue to keep going. And how does
inspector in the Box change things for Indigenous housing professionals.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Well, it's the biggest thing is we retain, like we
develop ownership of the whole process, so we're allowed to
actually say, Okay, this is how we want to fix
our house, this is the material we want to put
into fixing our house, as opposed to a general contractor
(19:14):
coming into the community and dictating, yeah, this is how
we're going to fix it, and these are the materials
we're going to use. And it reduces that reliance on
the contractor having the say and kind of doing supply
and labor at the same time, because if you separate
the two supply and labor, if you control what materials
(19:37):
you purchase and you control who you hire to do
the work, you can actually reduce the cost of that
whole process by fifteen percent. Just we're just splitting that
those two bustances apart. Right. The other thing is it
basically allows you to have sovereignty of your decision making process. Okay,
(20:00):
this is how we want to do things, and this
is the process we're going to follow. And the final
part of that is it retains that wealth back in
the community because now you can decide, Okay, well I
can hire Jim the plumber to do just the plumbing
aspect of it, because he's local and he spends the community.
But the long term vision of the whole thing is
(20:23):
we create self safe and healthy homes and we we
strongly believe that homes are a huge determined determinant of
health and success in communities because like like, like, can
can you imagine where and the elders discharge for my
(20:44):
health facility, they have respiratory illnesses and there's they're sent
home to recover and send them back home to a
house that's that's got mold and it's got bacteria and
infectious diseases within how and stuff like that. It's not
a safe environment, and yet you send them home to recover. Basically,
(21:06):
we're just exposing them to a higher risk factor and
then they're going to get sicker, and then they're going
to go back into the house system. Right, So that
just increases the cost to the community for those health costs.
Plus it endangers the elderly or the people that have
chronic respiratory illnesses and stuff like that. But the other
(21:28):
aspect of it is a success. We can build the
biggest and best school in the world, spend fifty million
dollars on educational facility, higher the greatest teachers, and then
we send our kids to the school and expect them
to succeed. But in reality, they're waging a war trying
to survive their own home environment because it's unhealthy. There's
(21:53):
pests and vermin and mold and everything else, and it's
unheeded and it's poorly maintain all that stuff. So they
spend eighteen hours in that environment trying to survive that,
and then when they go to school, we think they're
prime for success, when in reality it's just a respite
for the war they're fighting at home. How are they
(22:16):
supposed to succeed in that kind of environment. So buy
to safe, healthy house. Then all the other things that
we're providing in the other context of education and health,
those actually have a chance to succeed and make a
difference if they come from health a safe, healthy home.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Well. Using hands on training and easy to use technology,
candidates are equipped to do what types of services.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
They can do. So at its core, inspector in a
box is data collection, and that's a really important piece
is not to not just the home inspections. It's collecting
data of all different aspects of a home. So we
can collect the data that's needed to do the home inspection,
(23:11):
we can collect the data that's needed to do asset management,
energy rebate programming, and energy like all different types of
other data that is needed to understand the housing environment.
The results are like scopes of work costs, US Class
(23:34):
B cost estimates, energy rebate programming, funding applications, Like there's
a lot of one off funding that's available, Like say
like in a community, there's one off funding that you
can access to fix ten ten roofs, and our data
collection process and it enables you to actually collect the
(23:55):
data that you need that you need to identify which
ten roofs you can fix and then now you can
just chase that funding, right important thing is it collects
the data that you need to access funding that you
can do that you can get to actually complete the
repairs and move these projects forward.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Oh incredible. Now those that that need to be trained
on how to use that technology, that's a part of
services that you're providing that teach them the technology how
to use that technology.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Yeah. Yeah, We enroll them in a in a program
called Carson dun Lap It's a home inspection course. It's
an online course. It's nationally and internationally recognized. It's it's
actually used in i think thirty different other countries for
home inspection training and it's recognized in Canada US as well.
So that's that's the primary core function of Carson dun
(24:54):
lup is is the home inspection process and understanding deficiency recognition,
which is so important because deficiency recognition is one of
those things where if you can look at something and understand, Okay,
there's something wrong here and be able to explain what
(25:17):
that item is that's wrong and how to fix it
is so important to moving things forward. So we go
through the Carson Dunlop course and that's usually six months
to a year, where we support the candidate and to
help with pure tutoring to help them understand that whole
skill set. And then we actually do we teach them
(25:40):
on how to use a drone to do roof inspections
and aerial aerial photography and do the actual entire property
to understand drainage issues within that property, Thermal cameras, moisture meters,
laser measuring tools, there's several apps that we actually provide
(26:04):
within the smartphone that we send them as well as
our actual home inspectionion software.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Yeah, I was looking at that. I was reading about
what's in the box, and it's like smartphones with preloaded
inspection apps and drones for like you said, with memory
cards for aerial inspections, thermal camera attachment to detect heat
loss and moisture. I didn't even know they did that.
(26:32):
I learned a lot, you know, moisture meter and measuring
tools for structure assessments, laser measuring tools for accurate floor
plans and training guys and report templets for seamless inspections.
I mean, so they just open the box and there
they are. They have everything that they need to perform
(26:55):
their job.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Yeah, we strongly believe that technology is the great equalizer
in terms of knowledge learning and developing a skill base
for inspection occupations like in the old days, Like the
typical home inspector right now you look at is somebody
(27:19):
that's in their forty late forties, fifties. They have twenty
five years experience of carpentry and construction and understand that
whole process. But we are we're actually trying to change
that mindset of what that home inspector is and we're
targeting a younger, more youthful audience because we were trying
(27:43):
to bring that knowledge based on that skill set, training
and condense it into a one year timeframe so that
that person now can learn what it would take a
normal somebody doing construction and entry around like five years.
(28:04):
We're trying to condense it to one year using technology.
And there's a lot of things with technology that allows
us to actually to speed up that process, especially like
remote learning. But smartphones are one of the biggest things
in that intuitive connection to technology, and so like I
always say, I always have the same comment, like you
(28:26):
give a fifty year old carpenter a smartphone and they
make a phone call, But you give a twenty year
old a smartphone and they're banking, watching videos, downloading all
sorts of resource material and they can live their life
using a smartphone. Right, And so there's so much technology
out there that has that's available through like different apps
(28:51):
and different functions through a smartphone that we can actually
shorten the learning curve and really condense that timeframe and
produce within one year somebody that has all the tools
and knowledge to do home inspections and to actually move
housing programs forward.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Incredible. As I was doing my research, I also saw,
in addition to direct community delivery Inspector in a Box,
it's also available as a franchise, enabling Indigenous entrepreneurs to
operate their own housing support businesses. So are there any
(29:32):
specific requirements to own a franchise?
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Not really, Like the whole franchise process came up as
a result of our initial meetings with communities and them
identifying gaps and deficiencies within our service offerings. Originally, when
we launched Inspector in a Box, it was it was
just a remote capacity development and inspection process. But when
(30:01):
we presented the communities, they said, well, okay, well when
you train, when you train somebody so they can do
home inspections. How do we keep them within that skill
set and keep them employed within that because there's a
lot of one off training program for somebody can spend
three months to be in IT tech, but later they're
(30:21):
pushing a broom because there's no job prospects within that training.
So we thought about that. I said, okay, well, after
we train our candidate, why don't we certify them as
home inspectors across Canada and the US and so they
can actually just continue to do the home inspection business
not just within their home community, but within the municipalities
(30:44):
and geographical areas that they're living and actually bring generator
revenue that can keep them employed and bring them economic
developer prosperity. And then we looked at that and said, okay,
well we'll train them as home inspectors and certify them
so they can have businesses. And then the next question
(31:07):
came up as a result that does well well after
their business, how do we support them? And said, okay, well,
why don't we develop inspector in a box and offer
a franchise model where that candidate can now come in
become a franchisee and we can support them with our
own infrastructure for that three to five years where most
businesses fail, right to get them over that hump, and
(31:29):
then we can support them with our own invoicing and
scheduling and email systems and inspection software and all that,
and then hopefully within that after that three to five
year timeframe, we can approach them and say, hey, look,
you're a successful business. Now you have your own clients,
you're generating your own revenue. Maybe it's time for us
(31:53):
the part ways and you to go on as your
own business, as your own entity, and we'll always be
there to support you if you ever have any questions,
if you ever have business development questions or want to
learn more and continuing education, like, we'll be there, but
it's time to go on your own. And that's kind
(32:14):
of how the franchise model kind of came up as
just a it's an interim way to support a candidate
and hopefully that candidate within three to five years can
actually become their own business. And that's kind of what
we'd like to see because at the end of the day,
we still live by that model of we work ourselves
out of the job because as they're like, there's six
(32:37):
hundred and sixty nations across Canada, there's five hundred and
I think forty in the US. Yeah, there's twelve hundred
Indigenous communities nations across Canada. US. It's not like we'll
ever be out of a job. So but the idea
(32:57):
of the long term vision is we have some be
capable in each and every community across county US to
fulfill these roles right and.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Then train their their children. It just continues and the
business continues to grow. I mean some there are some
smaller tribes, but there are some much larger tribes, and
you'd have to have like twenty inspectors that are there.
I mean, I mean it's just you know, huge and
(33:29):
the businesses and they can then train there. I know,
when I was in school many years back, learning skills
training was something that was done in high school. In
middle school they would begin and then in high school
they were able to go to shop. They were able
to learn all types of skills, carpentry, plumbing, things like that.
(33:53):
They don't do that in school anymore. I'm not really
sure why they felt that was not a needed service. Instead,
you're learning poetry. I'm sorry, I'm digressing, but you know,
learning skills that will actually benefit you in your twenties
and your thirties and your forties and your fifties is
something that would be really important. And so them learning
(34:16):
those skills and then passing those skills on to other youth,
you know, either in their family or others in the community.
I mean, it could just go on for generations. So
as you mentioned, it's going to establish generational wealth, something
that will last for years and years. And believe me,
(34:36):
as long as there's a house, there's always going to
be a need for a house. It's like as long
as people live, you're always going to need healthcare. So
I mean there's just some some skills out there. They're
never going to stop being needed someplace, you know, in
the region. And so it's just something fantastic idea. So
(34:57):
you yeah, go ahead, I'm sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
I just want to kind of point out that like
the home and special industry, like this statistics March for
twenty twenty four is it's it's over like six billion
dollars in terms of revenue that they can within North America.
Like that's six billion dollars that we can have access to.
(35:22):
But not just that, like when we talk about retaining
that economic prosperity within the community. It's like when I
said there's a valuation of two billion dollars a year,
but we also look at the trickle down effect of
the economic of prosperity. Where we spend a dollar in
the community, it's generally spent three times over. So if
(35:44):
there's two billion dollars spent within the Indigenous community in Canada,
that's six billion dollars a year that we could retain
for ourselves. Can you imagine what kind of what kind
of generational impacts six billion dollars have to our housing community.
The same thing with the US as well, Like there's
(36:04):
there's so much revenue that's spent that just leaves the community,
and we need to keep that. We need to maintain
ownership of that revenue. And that's how we get out
of poverty, is keeping that money within the communities.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Yeah, how well is this being received in in communities?
I mean some of their key issues are they have
geographic isolation, like you said, labor shortage, you know, systemic underfunding,
aging infrastructure, overburdened housing departments. I Mean, the list goes
(36:44):
on as to why this is so needed and how
has it been received in communities.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
The response has been crazy. We've We've had so much
response from so much communities this year. One of the
big things we've focused on is putting developing strategic partnerships
because that's kind of another gap that we identified, is like,
(37:14):
when we go through the process of seeking renovation money
and securing it, then all of a sudden, now we're
in a position where now we need a project manager
to actually oversee the construe the renovation repair of these
homes that we've identified for that work. And we kind
(37:39):
of identified that we can't fill that role because we're
filling the role of already doing the inspections and the training.
We don't have capacity to be project managers as well
to do the renovations. But we have to safeguard that
process because all the work we've done with the inspection
process and secured that funding, if we put in a
(37:59):
project manager just there to fill their pockets and get
the hell out of Dodge, then we failed that our
process because we're still going to mind up with a
deficient house. Right. So we started kind of reaching out
and developing strategic partnerships across Canada US and saying, hey, look,
we want to find project managers and construction companies and
(38:20):
engineers and stuff like that that are in this space
for the right reason and not just in their pockets
and get rich off one project, but actually want to
see economic development and prosperity for indigenous communities and identifying
those those groups and organizations and being able to say
(38:41):
when we talk to a community, we walk in with
our inspector in a box hat, and all of a
sudden they're trying to fit us in for like economic
development and public works and infrastructure development, and we were like,
We're like, we want to be able to say, well,
we can't help you with that, like we don't do that,
but we know a person that can help you, and
we can make that introduction and then have that person
(39:04):
fulfill that role and be that guardian of that for
that nation to do that work right. So that's kind
of what we've really been focusing on, is identifying those
good candidates that we can hand off that work too.
And part of that process is we've also been building
(39:27):
our internal team in terms of being poised to be
able to just start taking on client after client and
client and doing the training and doing the work because
like there's such a great need and the reponts has
just been phenomenal. We have a waiting list of fift
(39:47):
or twenty five communities right now just in Canada alone
who want to Rector in a box, and we said,
we're just not ready to take on the volume of
the clients. Want to work out some of the this
year with the program, software integrations and the costing and
all that stuff, because the more we do it, the
(40:11):
more we can reduce the actual subscription costs for the
software and all this other stuff. Another key piece that
we were able to put together this year was we've
just signed a partnership with a company called Climate Door
out of British Columbia. Climate Or has graciously agreed to
(40:32):
do all our funding applications to launch our program as
well as to secure the rebate or the or the
renovation funding free charge. Like they'll do that free charge,
like we like, Well, we do all that work and
get our program launched using leveraging existing federal provincial funding
(40:56):
programs as well as secure the renovation funding using existing
programs that are out there and money will actually do
all that work free. So and that's been a really
key piece. Now we're finally, we're finally at the point
where we're ready to start just taking the volume on.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
Mm hmm wonderful. So looking to build capacity or become
an entrepreneur ready to launch their own venture, Inspector in
a Box offers a path four. What are the steps
to get in contact with your organization? What is your
(41:41):
email and phone number? How do you how should people
get in touch with you? I'm saying we want to
throw more work onto you Stand.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Yeah. Generally, just our email is stand Night nine one
one at gmail dot com. That's that's the most monitored
email I have. And then our website address is Zachary
Knight Enterprises dot com. But generally what we're doing is
like the work that we're doing is for indigenous communities.
(42:13):
So it's usually the indigenous communities that reach out to
us and say, okay, yeah, we want to we want
to move forward to fixing homes, and then they may
identify the candidate. In future, in probably probably two more years,
will be at the point where where somebody can reach
out to us directly as an individual and say, hey,
(42:35):
I want to launch an Inspector in the Box franchise
within my own geographical area and we in a position
to help them and do that role as as a
standalone franchise company. But right now we're focused on taking
on Indigenous communities as clients and then getting that work
(42:57):
moving forward to fixing homes. But the long term vision
is to develop that that direct franchise pathway as well, because,
like I said, like the franchise business model within the
home special franchise business model within Canada US is like
(43:17):
I think it was like six billion dollars or for
four billion dollars a year. That's a huge amount of
money that we can tap into, right and really generate
generational wealth.
Speaker 3 (43:31):
So, oh, yeah, have you attended any conferences any indigenous
to your project?
Speaker 2 (43:42):
Yeah? This fall I was planning on on attending I
think four conferences, and I had to counsel them all
because just because I just didn't have the time. We've
been just so swamped with work and trying to kind
of put all the pieces we need together. So for
(44:03):
twenty twenty six, I do have I think four conferences
in Canada planned. I haven't really kind of finalized in
US conferences this year, but there's probably a couple that
I would love to go to, but it's just kind
of finding the time because we're just we've booststrapped this
(44:26):
company since we started it in January of twenty twenty five,
and because of that, I've been kind of fulfilling all
the roles of business development and all the other stuff,
and we're finally in a position where we can actually
hire some bodies to do some of the admin positions.
(44:49):
Hopefully in the spring, will have maybe six conferences that
I can attend.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
I have some recommendations for you y definitely, I know
some that are going to be starting as early as
January and throughout the year, so I definitely will send
you some contact information for you know, some of the
(45:17):
indigenous communities that that have probably some of those issues
and would definitely appreciate, you know, being a part of this,
this business that you've put together, and this opportunity and
you've put together to just develop those skills among their youth,
(45:38):
because you know, one of the reasons that I do
this podcast is to bring information to the next generation.
You know, my generation. Most of my friends are retired already,
so it's time to share with the next generation, and
so we want to let them know. Everybody doesn't have
(45:59):
to go to college there are opportunities using your hands
and skills and things like that. Right now, we can't
even get our infrastructure done here in the US because
we don't have enough skilled labor. We've been We've had
a bridge here in this Washington Portland, Oregon area that
has needed to be replaced for years and they still
(46:22):
have had to delay it another five years because there's
not enough skilled labor. They've been trying to do classes
on skills training and things like that, and for whatever reason,
some of the youth are not signing up. I mean
the skills training, it doesn't cost anything. You're going to
(46:43):
get an opportunity to get an apprenticeship. But yet they're
not signing up for the skills training. So you know,
I'm not sure what the delay is, but it's an
opportunity to have your own business. So you know, I'm
high recommending that one of the things that will last
(47:05):
any type of recession, depression, economy, failure, or whatever is
having skills training in things like this doing you know,
building some houses, or going and repairing equipment or repairing
homes or you know, repairing roads or things like that.
That stuff is always going to be needed. Some of
(47:28):
your corporate jobs. You know, they can come and go,
but things on the ground, things with their hands, You're
never going to be in a situation where it's not needed.
And so I'm really you know, sending out the call
you want you're going to want to jump on this
because it gives you an opportunity to be your own boss.
(47:51):
Work the hours that you need to expand it, grow it,
whatever it is that you want to do. And you
don't have to you know, learn classes that you're never
going to use like you do in college. So it's
going to be an opportunity. And I really want to
encourage you younger people to go out there and just
(48:14):
learn about all the different skills plumbers, electricians, you know,
construction of housing, going in and tearing out, you know,
materials safely and fixing homes because there were some homes
built with materials that are have carcinogens in them and
(48:35):
all sorts of items and if that would would really
damage the respiratory system. So yeah, this is just a
phenomenal idea. Stand it's you know, I'm just so happy
for you. I'm happy for the organization, and I'm really
(48:57):
happy that you were able to join us. Is there
anything else you would like to share before we end today.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
Yeah, just the quick thing about sculpt tudes, like, like
you mentioned how important it's been. I had a discussion
with a community member and he mentioned in important statistic
that I thought was just shocking was in this community's
got forty two people that have PhDs and they have
(49:27):
one plumber. Like, Yeah, it's great to have higher education,
but we need the trades. And the focus has been
so much on higher education in the past twenty years
that we've we've neglected the trades. Now we have a
community that can create all sorts of policy, but they
have one broken toilet and they're going to be in.
Speaker 3 (49:51):
No trouble. Imagine to get fifty of them in the community.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
Yeah, exactly. And that's and that's so important because we
need to we need to building those traits again because
that is that is a bottleneck and infrastructure development for us.
And that's why we started focusing on diver or revenue
from our program into the education into the trades programs
as well as as capital investment so that we can
(50:17):
start standing up more of these indigenous.
Speaker 3 (50:19):
Businesses, indigenous businesses.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
And just demystify that business process. Because everybody thinks it
takes you have to be you have to have an
MBA to start a business. It's true because it's.
Speaker 3 (50:35):
Yeah, there's there's too many other skilled types of businesses
out there. You don't have to have any of this. Well,
I want to say thank you for joining me today
and we will talk more in the future. And for
those who are listening, there's opportunities and I hope that
you take advantage of these opportunities and get a hold
(50:57):
of stand Night and his pro and I just want
to thank everyone the tuned in today and let's just
think about that different opportunities are available and take advantage
of where they are. Thank you again for joining A
Sharp Outlook. We're here every Monday at eleven am Eastern
(51:20):
time eight am Pacific time, and we are happy for
you to go in join us on the website wwwasharp
outlook dot com and sign up so you don't miss
one of our programs. Thank you again and whatever you do,
(51:40):
stay in formed. I want to thank you for joining
us on A Sharp Outlook. We have been informed and
energized to take the next steps. We don't posted links
to websites and videos to learn more on today's tip.
Please join us again next week for another thought provoking
(52:03):
conversation right here on k for HD radio and Talk
for TV. Listen to the podcast on all the podcast apps,
and until next week, stay informed
This program is designed to provide general information with regards
to the subject matters covered. This information is given with
the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors or station
are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial,
legal counseling, professional service, or any advice.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
You should seek the services.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Hello and thank you for tuning in to a Sharp
Outlook on p for HD Radio and Talk or TV.
I am ANGELA Sharp your host. Our arm chair discussions
with industry experts will give you the steps, tools and
information to be successful in business and to prepare you
to be your best self. Hello and welcome to a
(00:56):
Sharp Outlook. Today we're going to have a very exciting
discussion on the topic of Indigenous communities and their housing
departments and meeting the needs of the community members. And
today's title is Inspector in a Box and when my
guest joins, we will be discussing what is in the box.
(01:22):
Indigenous communities have struggles in maintaining the housing for their
community members. Common issues are housing managers are overburdened and
under resourced, often forced to do the work of multiple
departments alone. That model is unsustainable. The solution to these
(01:42):
common issues is what we will be discussing today. We
want to bring you sustainable solutions to your communities. But
despite the countless programs and funding announcements, many communities remain
stuck and in crisis mode. And that's where Inspector in
a Box will come in and be able to make
(02:04):
things so much better for you. It is a practical,
tech enabled program that provides Indigenous communities with the tools, training,
and capacity building. This program was created to fill a
major gap. Many Indigenous communities lack access to qualified inspectors,
cost estimators, or the internal capacity to manage repairs, renovations
(02:30):
and retrofits. The result misfunding, delayed projects and unsafe homes.
Inspector in a Box changes that. It delivers a ready
to deploy system that empowers communities to take control of
their housing programs. The program itself was created to fill
(02:55):
that gap, and it will deliver it ready to deploy
system that empowers communities to take control of their housing
programs without relying on costly external consultants. Through hands on
training and easy to use technology, local candidates are equipped
(03:15):
to complete full housing expections, generate class beat cost estaments,
create scopes of work and photo documentation, identify energy retrofute
fit opportunities, prepare funding applications, conduct building condition assessments, and
(03:35):
become their own businesses. It's not a service to do
the work for the Housing department, but to provide scalable,
sustainable and community driven housing solutions. Inspector in a Box
is a capacity building model. By training local candidates and
leveraging user friendly systems, communities gain the power to manage
(04:00):
housing projects independently and effectively. Inspector in a Box is
a cutting edge solution designed to build housing capacity within
Indigenous communities in Canada and the United States. This is
such an incredible topic. I would like to invite Stan
(04:24):
Zachary Knight, who is our guest, to talk about this
impressive project and product that is available for Indigenous communities.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Hello Stan, good morning Angela. Thank you for having me today.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Well, I'm going to read your bio here. You are
a proud member of the Opaskoyak Free Nation in Northern Manitoba.
You grew up witnessing the direct impact of substandard housing
in indigenous communities that experience has stayed with you throughout
(05:05):
your life and inspired a career committed real change. The
journey has taken you through diverse roles our CMP officer,
building supply store manager, insurance adjuster, and certified home inspector,
all of which gave you deep practical understanding of the
(05:26):
housing challenges that face Indigenous people. But despite the countless
programs and funding announcements, many communities remained stuck in crisis mode.
Two years ago, you made a conscious decision to fully
dedicate energy and talents to Indigenous housing solutions. You relocated
(05:47):
your family to British Columbia and immersed yourself in Indigenous
housing ecosystem. It didn't take long to see a common group.
Housing managers are overburdened and under resource, often forced to
do the work of multiple departments. That is unsustainable, as
I mentioned in the description, and it's part of the
(06:10):
idea for something better. Zachary Knight Enterprises Limited with one
mission to create scalable, sustainable and community driven housing solutions.
Inspector in a Box isn't just a service as a
capacity building model, and I would like to talk about
(06:30):
Inspector in a Box. So what gave you that idea.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Well.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
One of the things like when we first moved out
to BC, we always understood there was issues with indigenous
housing and just the same consistency of poor products, poor design,
poor construction methods, predatory nature contractors. And when we came
out to BC, we believed that we had to be
(07:04):
involved within the First Nation organization or Indigenous community organizations
to be impactful in the role. So I took positions
within various housing departments, and I saw consistency in the programs.
It was the fact that housing departments are just they're understaffed,
(07:24):
they're poorly trained, they don't have the resources or the
capacity to actually move housing programs forward in a more
reactive nature. Of the position they spend most of their
days is putting out fires and not really moving real
housing programs forward. So we kind of came up with
the idea that, all right, let's make something that moves
(07:51):
inspections and gets housing repairs moving forward, but let's do
it in a more autonomous nature where we don't further
burden a housing manage or a housing department with babysitting
a program. So we came up with the idea that
we offer inspector in a box. We provide all the
(08:11):
training necessary to do the work, to do the inspections
and do the scopes of work, costs estimates, and energy
rebate programming and funding applications. But the nation or the
community maintains the autonomy and the sovereignty of that process.
So the process that we've come up with is the
(08:35):
community identifies the candidate they want to train, they give
us the initial list of thirty houses they want to inspect,
and we take it from there. We trained the candidate
to do the home inspections and do the work, and
within the first three months we hand over thirty complete inspections.
And then in those inspections, we identify what's wrong with
(08:58):
the house, what it to fix it, and the steps
needed to actually do the repairs. And then we asked
the community, Okay, we've completed your inspections. We're in the
process of training your candidate to fully assume the role
that we are doing for this short inter process, and
they we ask them to identify five or ten units
(09:21):
that they want to start repairs on, and we actually
do the funding applications to seek and secure the funding
to get those renovations started, So.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
This kind of supports local job creation. Also, I mean
it can foster intergenerational wealth and ensure more more housing
dollars stay in the community. So it's more than just
you going in there Mike getting I don't probably don't
get the little hammer out and things like that. But
(09:56):
you know, you're not just going in there fixing the problems.
You're training people there in the community to be able
to do this long term.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Yeah, that's the whole idea of the whole program is
like to maintain ownership and sovereignty of the process. And
so we like, even though I'm indigenous, Like I'm indigenous
from Northern Manitoba, I don't understand Inuit culture. I'm not
from it, like the Inuit culture. I'm not from the
BC Indigenous cultures, Meti culture. So even being indigenous, I
(10:33):
shouldn't be in the role of a housing manager making
those decisions on what's a culturally relevant, relevant solution to
my community. So what we're trying to do is provide
the tools and then I identify a local candidate that
can bring that culture and history into the mix and
(10:54):
provide those answers. But we just provide the tools for
them to be able to achieve the results.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
That's incredible. I mean, I've worked with Indigenous communities in
several capacities, and one of the things that I'm aware
of is the housing department and the fact that just
being able to establish self determination and economic empowerment and
building the future for you know, members of the indigenous
(11:25):
community is just an incredible idea. I mean, a lot
of people go in and they provide services, but they
don't leave the knowledge they're in the community, so it's
just a constant, you know, outlay of money outside of
the community, so it doesn't help to build that community.
(11:46):
And you know, with the Inspector in the Box, you're
you're not only helping the members that need their houses
worked on, but you are changing lives because you're creating
opportunities for jobs and that those people in the community
that are being paid to maintain those homes and and
(12:08):
now their families are going to learn, you know, different skills.
I don't know what all skills are involved. I haven't
had to repair a house, so I'm not sure everything
that's involved. But tell me more about you know, this
Inspector in the Box, it's you say that it's scalable,
so you can just go out to different communities.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yes, So the idea is we actually train a community
member to take to do the work and take over
the role. And like the whole idea behind the process
is that we work ourselves out of the job and
so eventually that the local candidate becomes that person that
does the work. But we when we started this whole
(12:54):
process and talking to Indigenous communities across Canada and getting
their feedback about the program and some of the gaps
in what we were offering, we actually started looking at
the entire indigenous construction economy in terms of just specifically
for new construction for houses and renovation repair of houses,
(13:16):
and we wanted to actually set a valuation for that
ecosystem and see how much money goes into that stream
of funding and kind of what the social impacts of
that would be. And so there's no hard and fast reports,
so it was all empirical data we gathered from different
organizations and community groups. We set a valuation about two
(13:40):
billion dollars in Canada goes into the indigenous construction economy
for new construction and renovation repair and right now eighty
to ninety percent of that actually leaves in the pockets
and consultants and contractors who have no vested interest in
the economic development of those communities that they're working with.
And so we started looking at that and saying, well,
(14:02):
what can we do to change that. How can we
retain more of that wealth within the indigenous community and
bolster the economy of that community. And so we looked
at it and there was three aspects that we kind
of identified that we wanted to focus on with our
Inspector in the Box program. One is education, so we've
(14:24):
in twenty twenty six we're going to be launching an
Indigenous scholarship program for four year degree programs as well
as two year trade programs to really bring about that
educational component that's missing. Their aspect is an Indigenous Business
incubator because Indigenous people when they start a business, they
(14:46):
have unique aspects that they have to address within starting
a business because like taxation issues is a big issue
on Indigenous even advertising social media, like we we have
a different and target audience, and our target audience lives
in different formats and where the general non Indigenous public lives.
(15:11):
Educate our or financing, banking kind of just all the
understanding all the aspects that takes to stand up a
business on indigenous community. So we started focusing on developing
an Indigenous business incubator, and then the third and final
step was capital investment. We actually wanted to focus our
(15:33):
capital investment efforts into asking the question do you have
community supports? And if you have community support, you're ninety
nine percent more likely to succeed as a business. We
didn't want to be tied to that that agile question
what's your credit score, because that's been a really detrimental
question to Indigenous communities across Canada and the US. So
(15:56):
we're focusing capital investment just to say, yeah, do you
have community support? And if you have community supports, we
will help. We'll do our best to help you. And
those are the three aspects that we're diverting a lot
of our revenue firm, our Inspector in the Box program
into those three to fully to fully grow the Indigenous
(16:19):
economy across Canada and US.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Yeah, yeah, that's really important, especially if they're going to
be starting businesses. Besides knowing their trade, that they're going
to be doing, just like you said, meeting all of
those regulatory requirements to be able to stay in business
and not being afraid or setting up a nice you know,
(16:43):
bookkeeping system for them. I know, one of the projects
that I worked with was going out and doing financial
literacy training and indigenous communities here in the US, and
that's been going on since two thousand seven, two thousand
(17:03):
and eight, two thousand and nine, and like five years.
We spent you know, having conferences going we did train
to trainers, so we had trainers out there just you know,
going all over the country you know, at the same
time and just hitting all of the communities and doing
(17:24):
financial literacy training and train the trainers. And it also
helped for those that are getting for capita. They have
to take financial literacy before they're able to get those funds,
and so they understand what to do with them and
they're keeping more of the money instead of making bad decisions.
So yeah, this is really getting you know, better by
(17:47):
the minute here, Stan, You're really thinking about this whole aspect,
and that's that's really incredible. And so I understand your
reasoning for wanting to use this inspector in the box
and instead of bringing other professionals in, like you said,
contractors and they come in the cost is generally pretty high,
(18:12):
and then they walk away and there's no no education,
no knowledge, and so you're constantly having to you know,
bring them in and knowledge. As I had another guest
on knowledge is power, and so you're wanting to In fact,
(18:33):
it's probably more valuable than just ash at the time
because you retain knowledge for a long time and you're
able to just continue to keep going. And how does
inspector in the Box change things for Indigenous housing professionals.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Well, it's the biggest thing is we retain, like we
develop ownership of the whole process, so we're allowed to
actually say, Okay, this is how we want to fix
our house, this is the material we want to put
into fixing our house, as opposed to a general contractor
(19:14):
coming into the community and dictating, yeah, this is how
we're going to fix it, and these are the materials
we're going to use. And it reduces that reliance on
the contractor having the say and kind of doing supply
and labor at the same time, because if you separate
the two supply and labor, if you control what materials
(19:37):
you purchase and you control who you hire to do
the work, you can actually reduce the cost of that
whole process by fifteen percent. Just we're just splitting that
those two bustances apart. Right. The other thing is it
basically allows you to have sovereignty of your decision making process. Okay,
(20:00):
this is how we want to do things, and this
is the process we're going to follow. And the final
part of that is it retains that wealth back in
the community because now you can decide, Okay, well I
can hire Jim the plumber to do just the plumbing
aspect of it, because he's local and he spends the community.
But the long term vision of the whole thing is
(20:23):
we create self safe and healthy homes and we we
strongly believe that homes are a huge determined determinant of
health and success in communities because like like, like, can
can you imagine where and the elders discharge for my
(20:44):
health facility, they have respiratory illnesses and there's they're sent
home to recover and send them back home to a
house that's that's got mold and it's got bacteria and
infectious diseases within how and stuff like that. It's not
a safe environment, and yet you send them home to recover. Basically,
(21:06):
we're just exposing them to a higher risk factor and
then they're going to get sicker, and then they're going
to go back into the house system. Right, So that
just increases the cost to the community for those health costs.
Plus it endangers the elderly or the people that have
chronic respiratory illnesses and stuff like that. But the other
(21:28):
aspect of it is a success. We can build the
biggest and best school in the world, spend fifty million
dollars on educational facility, higher the greatest teachers, and then
we send our kids to the school and expect them
to succeed. But in reality, they're waging a war trying
to survive their own home environment because it's unhealthy. There's
(21:53):
pests and vermin and mold and everything else, and it's
unheeded and it's poorly maintain all that stuff. So they
spend eighteen hours in that environment trying to survive that,
and then when they go to school, we think they're
prime for success, when in reality it's just a respite
for the war they're fighting at home. How are they
(22:16):
supposed to succeed in that kind of environment. So buy
to safe, healthy house. Then all the other things that
we're providing in the other context of education and health,
those actually have a chance to succeed and make a
difference if they come from health a safe, healthy home.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Well. Using hands on training and easy to use technology,
candidates are equipped to do what types of services.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
They can do. So at its core, inspector in a
box is data collection, and that's a really important piece
is not to not just the home inspections. It's collecting
data of all different aspects of a home. So we
can collect the data that's needed to do the home inspection,
(23:11):
we can collect the data that's needed to do asset management,
energy rebate programming, and energy like all different types of
other data that is needed to understand the housing environment.
The results are like scopes of work costs, US Class
(23:34):
B cost estimates, energy rebate programming, funding applications, Like there's
a lot of one off funding that's available, Like say
like in a community, there's one off funding that you
can access to fix ten ten roofs, and our data
collection process and it enables you to actually collect the
(23:55):
data that you need that you need to identify which
ten roofs you can fix and then now you can
just chase that funding, right important thing is it collects
the data that you need to access funding that you
can do that you can get to actually complete the
repairs and move these projects forward.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Oh incredible. Now those that that need to be trained
on how to use that technology, that's a part of
services that you're providing that teach them the technology how
to use that technology.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Yeah. Yeah, We enroll them in a in a program
called Carson dun Lap It's a home inspection course. It's
an online course. It's nationally and internationally recognized. It's it's
actually used in i think thirty different other countries for
home inspection training and it's recognized in Canada US as well.
So that's that's the primary core function of Carson dun
(24:54):
lup is is the home inspection process and understanding deficiency recognition,
which is so important because deficiency recognition is one of
those things where if you can look at something and understand, Okay,
there's something wrong here and be able to explain what
(25:17):
that item is that's wrong and how to fix it
is so important to moving things forward. So we go
through the Carson Dunlop course and that's usually six months
to a year, where we support the candidate and to
help with pure tutoring to help them understand that whole
skill set. And then we actually do we teach them
(25:40):
on how to use a drone to do roof inspections
and aerial aerial photography and do the actual entire property
to understand drainage issues within that property, Thermal cameras, moisture meters,
laser measuring tools, there's several apps that we actually provide
(26:04):
within the smartphone that we send them as well as
our actual home inspectionion software.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Yeah, I was looking at that. I was reading about
what's in the box, and it's like smartphones with preloaded
inspection apps and drones for like you said, with memory
cards for aerial inspections, thermal camera attachment to detect heat
loss and moisture. I didn't even know they did that.
(26:32):
I learned a lot, you know, moisture meter and measuring
tools for structure assessments, laser measuring tools for accurate floor
plans and training guys and report templets for seamless inspections.
I mean, so they just open the box and there
they are. They have everything that they need to perform
(26:55):
their job.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Yeah, we strongly believe that technology is the great equalizer
in terms of knowledge learning and developing a skill base
for inspection occupations like in the old days, Like the
typical home inspector right now you look at is somebody
(27:19):
that's in their forty late forties, fifties. They have twenty
five years experience of carpentry and construction and understand that
whole process. But we are we're actually trying to change
that mindset of what that home inspector is and we're
targeting a younger, more youthful audience because we were trying
(27:43):
to bring that knowledge based on that skill set, training
and condense it into a one year timeframe so that
that person now can learn what it would take a
normal somebody doing construction and entry around like five years.
(28:04):
We're trying to condense it to one year using technology.
And there's a lot of things with technology that allows
us to actually to speed up that process, especially like
remote learning. But smartphones are one of the biggest things
in that intuitive connection to technology, and so like I
always say, I always have the same comment, like you
(28:26):
give a fifty year old carpenter a smartphone and they
make a phone call, But you give a twenty year
old a smartphone and they're banking, watching videos, downloading all
sorts of resource material and they can live their life
using a smartphone. Right, And so there's so much technology
out there that has that's available through like different apps
(28:51):
and different functions through a smartphone that we can actually
shorten the learning curve and really condense that timeframe and
produce within one year somebody that has all the tools
and knowledge to do home inspections and to actually move
housing programs forward.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Incredible. As I was doing my research, I also saw,
in addition to direct community delivery Inspector in a Box,
it's also available as a franchise, enabling Indigenous entrepreneurs to
operate their own housing support businesses. So are there any
(29:32):
specific requirements to own a franchise?
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Not really, Like the whole franchise process came up as
a result of our initial meetings with communities and them
identifying gaps and deficiencies within our service offerings. Originally, when
we launched Inspector in a Box, it was it was
just a remote capacity development and inspection process. But when
(30:01):
we presented the communities, they said, well, okay, well when
you train, when you train somebody so they can do
home inspections. How do we keep them within that skill
set and keep them employed within that because there's a
lot of one off training program for somebody can spend
three months to be in IT tech, but later they're
(30:21):
pushing a broom because there's no job prospects within that training.
So we thought about that. I said, okay, well, after
we train our candidate, why don't we certify them as
home inspectors across Canada and the US and so they
can actually just continue to do the home inspection business
not just within their home community, but within the municipalities
(30:44):
and geographical areas that they're living and actually bring generator
revenue that can keep them employed and bring them economic
developer prosperity. And then we looked at that and said, okay,
well we'll train them as home inspectors and certify them
so they can have businesses. And then the next question
(31:07):
came up as a result that does well well after
their business, how do we support them? And said, okay, well,
why don't we develop inspector in a box and offer
a franchise model where that candidate can now come in
become a franchisee and we can support them with our
own infrastructure for that three to five years where most
businesses fail, right to get them over that hump, and
(31:29):
then we can support them with our own invoicing and
scheduling and email systems and inspection software and all that,
and then hopefully within that after that three to five
year timeframe, we can approach them and say, hey, look,
you're a successful business. Now you have your own clients,
you're generating your own revenue. Maybe it's time for us
(31:53):
the part ways and you to go on as your
own business, as your own entity, and we'll always be
there to support you if you ever have any questions,
if you ever have business development questions or want to
learn more and continuing education, like, we'll be there, but
it's time to go on your own. And that's kind
(32:14):
of how the franchise model kind of came up as
just a it's an interim way to support a candidate
and hopefully that candidate within three to five years can
actually become their own business. And that's kind of what
we'd like to see because at the end of the day,
we still live by that model of we work ourselves
out of the job because as they're like, there's six
(32:37):
hundred and sixty nations across Canada, there's five hundred and
I think forty in the US. Yeah, there's twelve hundred
Indigenous communities nations across Canada. US. It's not like we'll
ever be out of a job. So but the idea
(32:57):
of the long term vision is we have some be
capable in each and every community across county US to
fulfill these roles right and.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Then train their their children. It just continues and the
business continues to grow. I mean some there are some
smaller tribes, but there are some much larger tribes, and
you'd have to have like twenty inspectors that are there.
I mean, I mean it's just you know, huge and
(33:29):
the businesses and they can then train there. I know,
when I was in school many years back, learning skills
training was something that was done in high school. In
middle school they would begin and then in high school
they were able to go to shop. They were able
to learn all types of skills, carpentry, plumbing, things like that.
(33:53):
They don't do that in school anymore. I'm not really
sure why they felt that was not a needed service. Instead,
you're learning poetry. I'm sorry, I'm digressing, but you know,
learning skills that will actually benefit you in your twenties
and your thirties and your forties and your fifties is
something that would be really important. And so them learning
(34:16):
those skills and then passing those skills on to other youth,
you know, either in their family or others in the community.
I mean, it could just go on for generations. So
as you mentioned, it's going to establish generational wealth, something
that will last for years and years. And believe me,
(34:36):
as long as there's a house, there's always going to
be a need for a house. It's like as long
as people live, you're always going to need healthcare. So
I mean there's just some some skills out there. They're
never going to stop being needed someplace, you know, in
the region. And so it's just something fantastic idea. So
(34:57):
you yeah, go ahead, I'm sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
I just want to kind of point out that like
the home and special industry, like this statistics March for
twenty twenty four is it's it's over like six billion
dollars in terms of revenue that they can within North America.
Like that's six billion dollars that we can have access to.
(35:22):
But not just that, like when we talk about retaining
that economic prosperity within the community. It's like when I
said there's a valuation of two billion dollars a year,
but we also look at the trickle down effect of
the economic of prosperity. Where we spend a dollar in
the community, it's generally spent three times over. So if
(35:44):
there's two billion dollars spent within the Indigenous community in Canada,
that's six billion dollars a year that we could retain
for ourselves. Can you imagine what kind of what kind
of generational impacts six billion dollars have to our housing community.
The same thing with the US as well, Like there's
(36:04):
there's so much revenue that's spent that just leaves the community,
and we need to keep that. We need to maintain
ownership of that revenue. And that's how we get out
of poverty, is keeping that money within the communities.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Yeah, how well is this being received in in communities?
I mean some of their key issues are they have
geographic isolation, like you said, labor shortage, you know, systemic underfunding,
aging infrastructure, overburdened housing departments. I Mean, the list goes
(36:44):
on as to why this is so needed and how
has it been received in communities.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
The response has been crazy. We've We've had so much
response from so much communities this year. One of the
big things we've focused on is putting developing strategic partnerships
because that's kind of another gap that we identified, is like,
(37:14):
when we go through the process of seeking renovation money
and securing it, then all of a sudden, now we're
in a position where now we need a project manager
to actually oversee the construe the renovation repair of these
homes that we've identified for that work. And we kind
(37:39):
of identified that we can't fill that role because we're
filling the role of already doing the inspections and the training.
We don't have capacity to be project managers as well
to do the renovations. But we have to safeguard that
process because all the work we've done with the inspection
process and secured that funding, if we put in a
(37:59):
project manager just there to fill their pockets and get
the hell out of Dodge, then we failed that our
process because we're still going to mind up with a
deficient house. Right. So we started kind of reaching out
and developing strategic partnerships across Canada US and saying, hey, look,
we want to find project managers and construction companies and
(38:20):
engineers and stuff like that that are in this space
for the right reason and not just in their pockets
and get rich off one project, but actually want to
see economic development and prosperity for indigenous communities and identifying
those those groups and organizations and being able to say
(38:41):
when we talk to a community, we walk in with
our inspector in a box hat, and all of a
sudden they're trying to fit us in for like economic
development and public works and infrastructure development, and we were like,
We're like, we want to be able to say, well,
we can't help you with that, like we don't do that,
but we know a person that can help you, and
we can make that introduction and then have that person
(39:04):
fulfill that role and be that guardian of that for
that nation to do that work right. So that's kind
of what we've really been focusing on, is identifying those
good candidates that we can hand off that work too.
And part of that process is we've also been building
(39:27):
our internal team in terms of being poised to be
able to just start taking on client after client and
client and doing the training and doing the work because
like there's such a great need and the reponts has
just been phenomenal. We have a waiting list of fift
(39:47):
or twenty five communities right now just in Canada alone
who want to Rector in a box, and we said,
we're just not ready to take on the volume of
the clients. Want to work out some of the this
year with the program, software integrations and the costing and
all that stuff, because the more we do it, the
(40:11):
more we can reduce the actual subscription costs for the
software and all this other stuff. Another key piece that
we were able to put together this year was we've
just signed a partnership with a company called Climate Door
out of British Columbia. Climate Or has graciously agreed to
(40:32):
do all our funding applications to launch our program as
well as to secure the rebate or the or the
renovation funding free charge. Like they'll do that free charge,
like we like, Well, we do all that work and
get our program launched using leveraging existing federal provincial funding
(40:56):
programs as well as secure the renovation funding using existing
programs that are out there and money will actually do
all that work free. So and that's been a really
key piece. Now we're finally, we're finally at the point
where we're ready to start just taking the volume on.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
Mm hmm wonderful. So looking to build capacity or become
an entrepreneur ready to launch their own venture, Inspector in
a Box offers a path four. What are the steps
to get in contact with your organization? What is your
(41:41):
email and phone number? How do you how should people
get in touch with you? I'm saying we want to
throw more work onto you Stand.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Yeah. Generally, just our email is stand Night nine one
one at gmail dot com. That's that's the most monitored
email I have. And then our website address is Zachary
Knight Enterprises dot com. But generally what we're doing is
like the work that we're doing is for indigenous communities.
(42:13):
So it's usually the indigenous communities that reach out to
us and say, okay, yeah, we want to we want
to move forward to fixing homes, and then they may
identify the candidate. In future, in probably probably two more years,
will be at the point where where somebody can reach
out to us directly as an individual and say, hey,
(42:35):
I want to launch an Inspector in the Box franchise
within my own geographical area and we in a position
to help them and do that role as as a
standalone franchise company. But right now we're focused on taking
on Indigenous communities as clients and then getting that work
(42:57):
moving forward to fixing homes. But the long term vision
is to develop that that direct franchise pathway as well, because,
like I said, like the franchise business model within the
home special franchise business model within Canada US is like
(43:17):
I think it was like six billion dollars or for
four billion dollars a year. That's a huge amount of
money that we can tap into, right and really generate
generational wealth.
Speaker 3 (43:31):
So, oh, yeah, have you attended any conferences any indigenous
to your project?
Speaker 2 (43:42):
Yeah? This fall I was planning on on attending I
think four conferences, and I had to counsel them all
because just because I just didn't have the time. We've
been just so swamped with work and trying to kind
of put all the pieces we need together. So for
(44:03):
twenty twenty six, I do have I think four conferences
in Canada planned. I haven't really kind of finalized in
US conferences this year, but there's probably a couple that
I would love to go to, but it's just kind
of finding the time because we're just we've booststrapped this
(44:26):
company since we started it in January of twenty twenty five,
and because of that, I've been kind of fulfilling all
the roles of business development and all the other stuff,
and we're finally in a position where we can actually
hire some bodies to do some of the admin positions.
(44:49):
Hopefully in the spring, will have maybe six conferences that
I can attend.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
I have some recommendations for you y definitely, I know
some that are going to be starting as early as
January and throughout the year, so I definitely will send
you some contact information for you know, some of the
(45:17):
indigenous communities that that have probably some of those issues
and would definitely appreciate, you know, being a part of this,
this business that you've put together, and this opportunity and
you've put together to just develop those skills among their youth,
(45:38):
because you know, one of the reasons that I do
this podcast is to bring information to the next generation.
You know, my generation. Most of my friends are retired already,
so it's time to share with the next generation, and
so we want to let them know. Everybody doesn't have
(45:59):
to go to college there are opportunities using your hands
and skills and things like that. Right now, we can't
even get our infrastructure done here in the US because
we don't have enough skilled labor. We've been We've had
a bridge here in this Washington Portland, Oregon area that
has needed to be replaced for years and they still
(46:22):
have had to delay it another five years because there's
not enough skilled labor. They've been trying to do classes
on skills training and things like that, and for whatever reason,
some of the youth are not signing up. I mean
the skills training, it doesn't cost anything. You're going to
(46:43):
get an opportunity to get an apprenticeship. But yet they're
not signing up for the skills training. So you know,
I'm not sure what the delay is, but it's an
opportunity to have your own business. So you know, I'm
high recommending that one of the things that will last
(47:05):
any type of recession, depression, economy, failure, or whatever is
having skills training in things like this doing you know,
building some houses, or going and repairing equipment or repairing
homes or you know, repairing roads or things like that.
That stuff is always going to be needed. Some of
(47:28):
your corporate jobs. You know, they can come and go,
but things on the ground, things with their hands, You're
never going to be in a situation where it's not needed.
And so I'm really you know, sending out the call
you want you're going to want to jump on this
because it gives you an opportunity to be your own boss.
(47:51):
Work the hours that you need to expand it, grow it,
whatever it is that you want to do. And you
don't have to you know, learn classes that you're never
going to use like you do in college. So it's
going to be an opportunity. And I really want to
encourage you younger people to go out there and just
(48:14):
learn about all the different skills plumbers, electricians, you know,
construction of housing, going in and tearing out, you know,
materials safely and fixing homes because there were some homes
built with materials that are have carcinogens in them and
(48:35):
all sorts of items and if that would would really
damage the respiratory system. So yeah, this is just a
phenomenal idea. Stand it's you know, I'm just so happy
for you. I'm happy for the organization, and I'm really
(48:57):
happy that you were able to join us. Is there
anything else you would like to share before we end today.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
Yeah, just the quick thing about sculpt tudes, like, like
you mentioned how important it's been. I had a discussion
with a community member and he mentioned in important statistic
that I thought was just shocking was in this community's
got forty two people that have PhDs and they have
(49:27):
one plumber. Like, Yeah, it's great to have higher education,
but we need the trades. And the focus has been
so much on higher education in the past twenty years
that we've we've neglected the trades. Now we have a
community that can create all sorts of policy, but they
have one broken toilet and they're going to be in.
Speaker 3 (49:51):
No trouble. Imagine to get fifty of them in the community.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
Yeah, exactly. And that's and that's so important because we
need to we need to building those traits again because
that is that is a bottleneck and infrastructure development for us.
And that's why we started focusing on diver or revenue
from our program into the education into the trades programs
as well as as capital investment so that we can
(50:17):
start standing up more of these indigenous.
Speaker 3 (50:19):
Businesses, indigenous businesses.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
And just demystify that business process. Because everybody thinks it
takes you have to be you have to have an
MBA to start a business. It's true because it's.
Speaker 3 (50:35):
Yeah, there's there's too many other skilled types of businesses
out there. You don't have to have any of this. Well,
I want to say thank you for joining me today
and we will talk more in the future. And for
those who are listening, there's opportunities and I hope that
you take advantage of these opportunities and get a hold
(50:57):
of stand Night and his pro and I just want
to thank everyone the tuned in today and let's just
think about that different opportunities are available and take advantage
of where they are. Thank you again for joining A
Sharp Outlook. We're here every Monday at eleven am Eastern
(51:20):
time eight am Pacific time, and we are happy for
you to go in join us on the website wwwasharp
outlook dot com and sign up so you don't miss
one of our programs. Thank you again and whatever you do,
(51:40):
stay in formed. I want to thank you for joining
us on A Sharp Outlook. We have been informed and
energized to take the next steps. We don't posted links
to websites and videos to learn more on today's tip.
Please join us again next week for another thought provoking
(52:03):
conversation right here on k for HD radio and Talk
for TV. Listen to the podcast on all the podcast apps,
and until next week, stay informed
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.