In the language of my ancestors, 'niit. Hello, everyone, and thank you for having us here. Toyaxsiim. Thank you all.
I'd like to start off by talking a little bit about our organization. As Canada's first indigenous grassroots housing authority, the Aboriginal Housing Management Association—AHMA—was created for indigenous people, by indigenous people. In addition to providing families with affordable and culturally appropriate housing, AHMA’s members offer many support services through 35 different programs, including homelessness prevention, transition homes, parenting skills, mental health programs, substance use support and more. As an indigenous organization, AHMA always brings cultural components to its relationship with its members. We recognize the dispossession of indigenous peoples caused by the Canadian government through a history of residential schools, the sixties scoop and the general consequences of colonization.
I want to take a brief moment to clarify the distinction of what we mean when we say “indigenous”. As you already titled your witnessing here, you've heard the term “urban, rural and northern”. We are the dispossessed, the disenfranchised from our sense of belonging to the three distinctions-based groups, having founded our own sense of community and belonging in the urban, rural and northern environments. We are the non-status, the status unknown, the migrating and the immigrant of the spectrums you refer to as distinctions-based groups. We know that in any given community of ours within B.C., our providers' clients comprise about 30% local nations, which means their communities are largely outside the scope of those three distinctions-based groups.
AHMA continues to work with its communities to reclaim self-determination through culturally appropriate housing that honours indigenous traditions in meaningful ways.
Following the 2019 federal election, the indigenous housing sector in B.C. and across Canada heaved a sigh of relief to see that Minister Hussen was mandated to create a national urban indigenous housing strategy. However, a year later, we are disheartened to see no tangible progress on this file. Considering the significant time and effort that has to be invested in this initiative and the wide consultation process that has to take place, we see the delay in initiating this project as a significant threat to its conception, notably in a minority government environment.
For this reason, AHMA’s board of directors has decided to invest our own funding to create a B.C. urban and rural indigenous housing strategy with the hope that, once completed, it will be considered for funding by our federal government, perhaps under a tripartite strategy that could be replicated in other provinces, such as Ontario, which has such a strong provincial indigenous leader in the Ontario Aboriginal Housing Services with its leader Justin Marchand, along with many others across the country.
An advisory committee composed of many internal and external stakeholders will oversee this progress and the development of the strategy and ensure that a vast and meaningful consultation is a crucial component of it.
The B.C. urban, rural and northern indigenous housing strategy will achieve multiple things, including defining and understanding who the urban, rural and northern indigenous housing and service providers are, and measuring their social and economic impact in supporting indigenous peoples. It will define current challenges in the delivery of urban, rural and northern indigenous housing, and propose solutions to bridge the gaps. It will assess B.C.’s indigenous urban, rural and northern housing needs and develop a 10-year plan to respond to the needs, not only fixing existing stock and building new units but also creating new and culturally appropriate housing programs. It will also develop an implementation and delivery plan that identifies the role of AHMA, member organizations, funders and partners; assess and build capacities for AHMA membership in housing-related domains; and finally, identify key partners to support the implementation of the strategy, which will be specific municipalities, MLAs, MPs, other indigenous organizations, and so on.
Only through meaningful engagement with AHMA and indigenous housing and service partners across Canada can the social, economic and indigenous rights of urban, rural and northern indigenous peoples in Canada be claimed and protected.
Toyaxsiim. Thank you all for having me. I'll leave it there.