Government makes tiny dent in demand for First Nations housing
OTTAWA • The federal government has promised to build just 300 new homes in First Nations communities across Canada this year even though the government itself acknowledges an immediate need of at least 20,000 homes on reserves.
Those two numbers — 300 new homes to be built against demand for 20,000 — have been pulled together for the first time by the NDP, which plans to make First Nations housing a centrepiece of its fall parliamentary advocacy.
“We have a prime minister who has created this image that nobody’s ever spent more than this government (on First Nations) but when you start to drill down into the numbers, there’s huge gaps,” said Charlie Angus, the NDP MP for TimminsJames Bay, home to some of Canada’s most troubled First Nations communities at Kashechewan and Attawapiskat.
“We have a massive crisis in housing across northern Canada in indigenous communities.”
Crowded, unhealthy living conditions have been one of the main causes identified in youth suicide crises in remote, northern First Nations communities.
Neither Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett nor departmental representatives were available Sunday to comment. Speaking in June to a parliamentary committee, Bennett called housing conditions on reserves “a disgrace.”
An internal assessment this year by Bennett’s officials concluded that, by 2031, the housing shortage on reserves will rise to 115,000 units.
Federal New Democrats have combed through recent Senate reports, House of Commons committee proceedings, Canadian Human Rights Tribunal rulings and filings, as well as disclosure documents from the Department of Indigenous and Northern Affairs.
A summary of that research was provided to the National Post on Sunday and it paints a picture of a staggering demand for housing, a demand acknowledged time and again by federal officials yet met with a paltry federal funding response.
For example: In order to bring the number of people living in each home on a reserve down to the Canadian average of 2.5 persons per home, an additional 80,000 First Nations homes are needed right now. Even bringing the average persons in a First Nations down to four would required 20,000 new homes, according to documents the government itself tabled in the Commons.
And yet, the 2016 federal budget provided funding for First Nations housing of just $206.6 million, enough to pay for just 300 new homes, the servicing of 340 new housing lots, and renovations to 1,400 homes.
“If your solution to a crisis of that magnitude is to put 300 new houses across the entire country for the year, that’s not even beginning to get serious about the issue,” Angus said in an interview Sunday.
It’s not clear if any of those 300 new homes to be funded with 2016 budget money have yet been built.
Documents filed in a recent Canadian Human Rights Tribunal case pegged the value of the current housing shortfall on First Nations across Canada at $6 billion. In Manitoba, $2 billion would be required to address housing shortages on reserves.
“The chances of winning a lottery are higher than the chance of getting a house built on a First Nations community right now,” Angus said.
Between 41 per cent and 51 per cent of existing homes are in need of repair. That figure was provided over the summer to MPs on the Commons committee responsible for indigenous and northern affairs.
The housing crisis on First Nations is expected to be addressed in the Liberal government’s yet-to-be released National Housing Strategy. That strategy is being put together now by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.