RECONCILIATION: MOVING FORWARD TOGETHER - APPENDICES
F-10
e.g. when a family member passes or a child is born. The projects must consider connection to the land, greenspace and outdoor gathering spaces. We believe that sufficient funding for the operational support component of housing projects is crucial for successful housing projects for Indigenous peoples. Due to so many challenges as a result of trauma, from health, mental health and addictions, violence, systemic racism and multiple barriers, we need to ensure that people not only are housed, but can successfully stay housed by providing high quality, culturally appropriate housing and tenancy support positions. If Indigenous Organizations are to support the people that truly need housing, we cannot do this alone with minimal operational funding. The people who are often deemed ‘hard to house’ due to mental health and addictions, cannot be forgotten, and yet, we will not have
the capacity to take in these tenants without the funding and support. 2. Challenges at a municipal level regarding availability of land
Our experience has been that at the provincial level there is support for Indigenous housing, within our organization there is the capacity, however, we have been delayed and challenged by lack of suitable land and delays at the municipal level. Our municipality has outwardly supported our project and yet on a practical level we still face these delays. It is our view that this experience is not unique to our project and needs to be considered by the province as one of the reasons there is so little housing being developed despite the provincial funding. How can we ensure that the reconciliation strategy and approach trickles down to the municipal level to ensure that we can truly move forward with positive outcomes for Indigenous people, many of whom, are being pushed further and further from their homes due to increasing unaffordability. Land to develop is the biggest concern. Land (on and off reserve) is available, however accessing it for projects is never straight forward. Conversations need to happen with the province, the nations and the municipalities about freeing up more land for developments of new housing for Indigenous people. This focus should be not only on rental housing but home ownership initiatives and opportunities both on and off reserve. 3. Reducing overcrowding and culturally appropriate design to accommodate families When talking about housing for Indigenous families, particularly those that live intergenerationally, we need to recognize that families are often large, with more than 3 children, particularly if a family is caring for the children of other family members. In many cases an aunt of grandparent is also living in the home. There needs to be houses with up to 4 bedrooms to provide for larger families. The rule and regulations around occupancy and its culturally appropriateness absolutely needs to be reviewed.
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