Healthy Indigenous communities require healthy housing – The Hill Times

September 5, 2022

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?

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.

Read More: https://www.hilltimes.com/2022/09/05/healthy-indigenous-communities-require-healthy-housing/380377