Healthy Indigenous communities require healthy housing

During COVID, across Canada Indigenous communities were instructed to stay home in housing conditions known to be actively hazardous to Indigenous families health. Two pandemic years, and a national tragedy or two later, the Liberal government unveiled its $4.3-billion plan in Budget 2022 to address the long known disaster that is Indigenous community housing. For Indigenous families, staying home further strained the existing housing infrastructure by mandating overcrowding, which in turn exacerbated mold growth, and general building envelope fatigue. Each successive Canadian government’s attempt at correcting this historical injustice has fallen short of their intended goals. Persisting even under meaningful shifts in policy and funding, Indigenous community housing remains a blight on the Canadian cultural landscape. Designing a meaningful solution to address the historical persistence of Indigenous housing poverty requires more than throwing billions of dollars at the problem. An investment of this size has the potential to both function as a stimulus to Indigenous communities, nurture capacity building, and create generative and sustainable approaches to housing security. By day I work in a Wsanec community on Vancouver Island and am inundated by calls from the community for housing that is safe, healthy, and which meets their cultural needs. Though each community grapples with other systemic issues, such as intergenerational poverty, housing insecurity is transnationally ubiquitous. Non-Indigenous Canadians ought to ask themselves, as they too face an unprecedented housing crisis, what does a housing secure Canada look like? Does a housing secure Canada include Indigenous communities? What historical injustices in Canada are worth rectification? If not Indigenous housing, then what is worthy of summoning the collective will to rectify the situation? Jordan Koe is a board member for Iron + Earth, a worker-led organization whose mission is to empower fossil fuel industry and Indigenous workers to build and implement climate solutions. Photograph courtesy of Jordan Koe The government mechanism that administers Indigenous housing in Canada is known as the On-Reserve Non-Profit Housing Program. Delivered by the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, this program has historically been the primary mechanism that finances the construction of housing on every reserve in Canada. Traditionally, housing development practices consisted of unilateral implementation without meaningful consultation or understanding of intergenerational community development. The systemic myopia of on-reserve housing has fostered an intergenerational crisis of housing poverty. We know from long experience that the established order of housing financing and governance is actively harming Indigenous family. What then is the plan for the coming $4.3-billion investment? Managed responsibly, $4.3-billion has the potential to build a meaningful amount of housing. But great housing does not come from good intentions alone. Community appropriate housing comes from competent design, skilled labour, and inclusive collaboration. With labour shortages in nearly every sector, the federal government must provide clarity on who will bid on these development contracts. Where are the architects and contractors who can design and build the housing that communities need and do this efficiently, cost-effectively, at scale, and in a timely way that responds to the urgent need. Well, the answer is simple: the communities themselves must take control of the funding. The promised $4.3-billion has the potential to be both an economic stimulus for Indigenous communities and a practical act of reconciliation. What is needed is a meaningful investment in the training component of development, empowering communities to become their own developers. To rise to this challenge, a broad and unified Indigenous response is required, where standardization and replication become key to driving costs down. We need a coalition of Indigenous-led designers and builders to establish a range of culturally and geographically appropriate dwellings that can be constructed at scale through novel and sustainable building practices. This $4.3-billion must flow through all channels of Indigenous communities and maximize every dollar’s impact on the health, safety, and welfare of Indigenous families. One thing is certain: the days of top-down, exploitative development contracts must end. Investment is needed in Indigenous communities so they become both the design teams and labour force for their own projects. And, with their communities fully immersed in the design and development process, these projects will surely be more successful, last longer, and become the pride of their communities. Upon the next call to stay at home, Indigenous families deserve to shelter in healthy homes, not simply to keep them safe from COVID, but to enjoy those conditions for the general well-being that is foundational to all the peoples of Canada. Jordan Koe is a board member for Iron + Earth, a worker-led organization whose mission is to empower fossil fuel industry and Indigenous workers to build and implement climate solutions. Koe is also a housing manager for a First Nation on Vancouver Island, B.C. The Hill Times

Healthy Indigenous communities require healthy housing

We know from long experience that the established order of housing financing and governance is actively harming Indigenous family. What then is the plan for the coming $4.3-billion investment?

Canada’s aging crisis and a call for reform in eldercare

Sudan’s warring sides and the long-simmering ethnic conflict

Balanced approach needed on right-to-repair bill, protecting IP rights and public safety

Reflections from a new citizen

Public Safety Canada’s dealing with natural and communication infrastructure disasters

As COP29 wraps up, will Canada finally stop funding fossils this fall?

Feds look for $13.2-billion boost to budgetary spending to wrap up 2023-24

Politics This Morning: Drone busters on the way

Empowering Indigenous prosperity and reconciliation with economy

Feds seek approval for additional $20.5-billion in spending

Canada must close the digital gap with Indigenous Peoples

News

Get free news updates

Opinion

Submit a guest opinion article

resources

Advertise

subscribe

get help

Get free news updates

Submit a guest opinion article

Healthy Indigenous communities require healthy housing

We know from long experience that the established order of housing financing and governance is actively harming Indigenous family. What then is the plan for the coming $4.3-billion investment?

Get The Weekend Point of View Newsletter