Human Resources Committee on Jan. 28th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

I would like to call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 13 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. Today’s meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of January 25, 2021. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. The webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entirety of the committee.

In order to ensure an orderly meeting, I would like to outline our standard rules. Members and witnesses may speak in the official language of their choice. Interpretation services are available for the meeting. You have the choice, on the bottom of your screen, of either floor, English or French. Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. If you are participating by video conference, please click on the microphone icon to unmute yourself. When you are done speaking, please put your mike back on mute to minimize any interference. Should any technical challenges arise, just let me know. We may need to suspend in order to ensure that all members are able to participate fully.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Friday, October 9, 2020, the committee is resuming its study of urban, rural and northern indigenous housing.

I would like to welcome our witnesses to begin the discussion with five minutes of opening remarks, followed by questions. Our witnesses today, whom we're pleased to have with us, are as follows: from Ajungi, Madeleine Redfern, president; from the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association, Jeff Morrison, executive director, and Steve Sutherland, manager, indigenous caucus;

and Ms. Heather Johnston, executive director of Projets autochtones du Québec.

I now yield the floor to Ms. Redfern.

Ms. Redfern, welcome to the committee. You have the floor for five minutes.

[Madeleine Redfern, President, Ajungi Arctic Consulting]

Wonderful. Thank you so much for the invitation.

Just to give the members a sense of who I am, I am Inuk. I live in Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut. I have been involved in a wide range of issues affecting my communities and my people for over 30 years, including housing and homelessness as well as ancillary issues with respect to education, training, social justice and more.

I think most of the members are very familiar with the housing crisis we face in Nunavut. I can tell you that as a former politician—I was the mayor of Iqaluit from 2010 to 2012 and then from 2015 to 2019—housing in my community and in the territory was one of our priorities. I actually worked very closely with one of our shelters. Through not just patience but almost stubbornness, I assisted in being able to help them open up a new shelter: 16,000 square feet, 30 shelter beds, 30 transition housing beds, new offices, new programming space and 11 apartments, five of which, I believe, have been made into affordable housing.

I'm no longer in politics. I'm working with the women's shelter here in Iqaluit to help them with their COVID space response, with their financials, as well as with submitting applications recently into Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, our regional Inuit association. I'm happy to say that they got some funding and are just waiting on the response from CMHC for their rapid housing—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Ms. Redfern, I'm going to have to interrupt you. Apparently, our sound is not coming through very clearly. If you can just stand by, we'll see if we can improve that.

In the interest of efficiency, we'll hear from the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association and then go back to Ms. Redfern, when hopefully the sound quality will be better.

Mr. Morrison, welcome to the committee. You have the floor for five minutes.

[Jeff Morrison, Executive Director, Canadian Housing and Renewal Association]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I apologize, Ms. Redfern, for taking part of your remarks.

Thank you to the committee for inviting us to speak on this critical issue. CHRA, for those of you who are unfamiliar, is the national association representing social, non-profit and affordable housing in Canada.

I'm also joined by my colleague today, Steve Sutherland, who is the manager of our indigenous caucus. That's the caucus that represents the subset of our membership that represents urban, rural and northern indigenous housing providers across Canada. I am happy to be joining this call from the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin people.

Urban, rural and northern indigenous housing providers have been around for decades. Indigenous housing providers are qualified and skilled, and have a strong track record of providing affordable housing, despite years of underfunding and an aging housing stock.

While CHRA and our caucus applaud the committee for undertaking this study, we believe that action is long overdue. CHRA and our caucus drew attention to the unique housing challenges facing urban, rural and northern indigenous peoples in our 2016 consultation brief on the national housing strategy. We felt that the absence of a dedicated plan in the national housing strategy, or since, has represented a glaring omission in that overall strategy.

The need for a dedicated strategy is clear. Indigenous peoples are 11 times more likely to experience homelessness than non-indigenous peoples. Over 24% of housing for indigenous peoples was below adequacy standards, compared with about 12% for non-indigenous households. According to a survey we conducted in 2019, our estimate for the cost to repair and renew the existing stock of urban indigenous housing came in at approximately $725 million, with stories, for example, of one housing unit that was over 75 years old and had never been repaired.

Sadly, the COVID pandemic has exacerbated these disparities. In fact, I don’t have to look any further than my own board of directors at CHRA. Our board member who represents the northern territories also is from Nunavut. She lives in Arviat. Due to overcrowding in her own personal dwelling, she, and then most of her extended family, contracted COVID before the holidays. Thankfully they’ve recovered, but sadly it's a story that we've heard all too much.

In 2018, after years of consultation and discussion, our CHRA caucus released a detailed vision and plan for an urban, rural and northern indigenous housing strategy. This plan, which is called the “For Indigenous By Indigenous” strategy, or FIBI strategy, identifies the key elements that our caucus believes need to form the basis for a dedicated strategy.

I will now hand over to my colleague Mr. Sutherland, who will talk a little more about this vision.

[Steve Sutherland, Manager, Indigenous Caucus, Canadian Housing and Renewal Association]

Thank you, Jeff.

I would also like to begin my comments by acknowledging that the land I am on is in Gatineau, which is the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe. As all of us are joining from many places near and far, I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners and caretakers of the lands that you find yourselves on. We do this to reaffirm our commitment and responsibility for improving relationships between nations, and to improve our own understanding of local indigenous peoples and their cultures.

As Jeff stated, a for indigenous, by indigenous, or FIBI, strategy is required over and above the national housing strategy already announced in November 2017. We have sent a copy of this document to the clerk for committee members to review, but let me please identify just a few of its key recommendations.

First, the FIBI strategy calls for the development of a for indigenous, by indigenous national housing centre that is indigenous designed, owned and operated. Its purpose would be to measure and develop better data, information, research and evaluation on urban, rural and northern indigenous housing, and to administer, manage and deliver any investments allocated under this strategy, as well as monitoring any outcomes. We are finalizing a draft governance structure for such an organization, and we can share that with the committee in the coming days.

Second, we believe that we should increase the supply of stable, safe and affordable housing by 73,000 units through dedicated funding streams that would be administered by this centre.

Third, we need to increase support for tenants’ well-being and long-term success with wraparound and culturally appropriate services.

Fourth, we should accelerate action on indigenous homelessness through a dedicated funding stream in Reaching Home and a dedicated strategy to ending chronic indigenous homelessness.

Fifth, we have to put a focus on northern housing. A comprehensive FIBI strategy needs to work in partnership with the territories and northern indigenous groups to eliminate the very large gap in core housing need facing indigenous peoples in Canada’s north.

Our estimate is that the funding required for this FIBI programming would be $25 billion over 10 years, which would complement the funding already found in the national housing strategy.

A FIBI housing strategy would not only address the housing needs of Canada’s urban, rural and northern indigenous peoples, but also demonstrate the federal government’s commitment to reconciliation. It would respond to both the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action and the calls for justice in the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls report.

Jeff, I will pass it back to you.

[Jeff Morrison]

Mr. Chair, once again we want to say thank you for your time today. We look forward to the discussion and questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you very much.

We will continue with the representative of Projets autochtones du Québec.

Ms. Johnston, welcome to the committee.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Heather Johnston, Executive Director, Projets Autochtones du Québec]

Thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the committee and to present on behalf of Projets Autochtones du Québec.

My name is Heather Johnston. I am the executive director of the organization PAQ, as we're called. I just want to clarify that I am not an indigenous person.

I will start with a very quick introduction of our organization. Our mission at Projets Autochtones du Québec is to create a better everyday life for first nations, Inuit and Métis women and men who are experiencing homelessness or are at risk in urban Montreal. We provide a wide range of accessible services and referrals that meet the basic needs and promote the well-being of the urban indigenous community in downtown Montreal.

We're not just a physical space, however. We are a supportive community for Montreal’s indigenous homeless population. We are a home to people who have experienced profound trauma and stigmatization, where they can find compassion, dignity and respect. PAQ supports community members on their healing journey and on their own terms.

My comments today are made in memory Raphael “Napa” Andre. Raphael Andre was found dead earlier this month in a porta-potty in downtown Montreal. Raphael was a tall, quiet Innu man. He was loved by his family and friends, and he was well known in the street communities of Montreal. He was a member of my organization. He used our shelters frequently over for the past seven years. He was at our shelter the night before he died.

We have seen a lot written about Raphael and the cause of his death—the curfew, lack of shelter spaces and public indifference. There is perhaps some truth in all of these explanations, yet they don't tell the whole story. Raphael Andre died because he was homeless.

Indigenous people experience homelessness at disproportionately high rates. Obviously this is an outcome of colonial legacies combined with ongoing systemic discrimination. The majority of indigenous peoples in Canada now reside in urban areas. It is a population that is expected to continue to grow. In Montreal, the 2018 homeless count indicated that an indigenous person is around 27 more times likely to be homeless than a non-indigenous person. An Inuk is roughly 80 times more likely.

When we look closely at the question of housing for Canada’s urban indigenous peoples, there are three important elements that I believe must be in place if we're to change these statistics. Had these been in place for Raphael, perhaps we could have prevented his death.

First of all, Raphael needed a home, not just an apartment with a room. He would not have coped well living independently. He needed permanent, stable housing with wraparound harm reduction services that would meet him where he was at. He needed a home where he could live life on his own terms, with 24-hour intervention support for addiction and mental health issues. Housing for urban indigenous people will require more than bricks and mortar. It needs to offer services adapted to people's real-life needs and preferences.

Raphael also needed access to culturally adapted health care services. Most indigenous peoples living in the streets express a profound mistrust of the mainstream health care system. The experience of Joyce Echaquan is the experience of every one of the people who use our shelter. We work with people every day who refuse to seek medical care, to the detriment of their own health and sometimes their lives, yet good health care is a fundamental building block to independent living. Housing and health go hand in hand. We cannot consider one without the other. There is a long road to travel to repair the trust in the health care system. This must be a priority for all who seek to address the profound inequality experienced by the urban indigenous.

Thirdly, and finally, Raphael needed a place where he could build community and find healing with other indigenous people. This notion of interdependent community will be an important component of any housing that is adapted to the real-life needs of the urban indigenous population. Too many housing programs favour solitary living arrangements where people are pushed out into the suburbs, far away from community and completely alone. They do not cope well and often abandon stable housing to return to their life within a street community. Housing options need to be in urban areas where indigenous people congregate. They need to include both private and communal spaces where people can benefit from privacy, but also friendship, connectedness and community.

We cannot accept as inevitable the homelessness of our neighbours. Let Raphael's death be a rallying cry, not for more shelter beds and not for more soup kitchens, but for access, without barriers, for all urban indigenous peoples to permanent, safe, appropriate and affordable housing, with the support necessary to live an interdependent life.

Thank you very much. It is a real honour to present to the committee today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Ms. Johnston.

Next, we're going to go back to Ms. Redfern.

I have been advised to ask you, Ms. Redfern, to plug in your mike and we're going to restart the clock for you so you can start from the top, but please just unplug and then plug in your microphone and then hopefully that will do the trick.

You have five minutes. The floor is yours. Thanks for your patience.

[Madeleine Redfern]

I don't know how much of my initial introduction was done, so I'll just go quickly over what may be repetitive.

I'm based here in Iqaluit, Nunavut. I have been working on housing and homelessness and other related issues for 30 years. I was the former mayor for the City of Iqaluit for two terms.

Most importantly, with respect to this topic, I assisted a men's shelter in getting two new buildings, that is, 16,000 square feet, with 30 shelter beds, 30 transition housing beds, new offices, a new programming space and 11 apartments, of which five are to be used for portable housing.

I am now working in the private sector and assisting the Iqaluit Agvvik women's shelter in securing funding, so that they too may now be able to secure funding for transition and affordable housing. I am also on the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness board, so I am definitely connected at the local level and the national level.

The issues we face for housing and homelessness in Nunavut are mostly well understood and known. The challenge I find, as both a former politician and now in the private sector, is the lack of coordination between the different levels of government and Inuit organizations, and the disconnect that happens with our communities that may not even have shelters and definitely struggle with sometimes not having the community organizations that can apply for funding.

There is a challenge, as well, with the high level of staff turnover with all the levels of government on this topic, as well as with the Inuit organizations. It's like a game of Snakes and Ladders. You're always trying to move forward, but every time you have an election, a change in leadership, a change in staff, a lot of that work that was being done is lost. For the next person who comes in, often there are delays and there is not good handover on the files, and it just feels as if you're never catching up.

The federal government has provided the government in Nunavut with almost $300 million for the next 10 years to help with the development of more public housing, as well as some affordable housing. Unfortunately, it's nowhere near what is required, because 3,000 units, at a cost of approximately $630,000 per unit, would require almost $1.89 billion. You can imagine that the $300 million is a tremendous shortfall.

Nonetheless, even when there is additional funding, like under the co-investment program or recently the rapid housing initiative, I find there's not enough people with the capacity to develop those applications. We end up seeing, time and time again, our region not submitting applications or not enough applications.

I really think the priority in being able to solve the issues here is more leadership, co-operation, coordination and capacity development. There are ways in which we can solve this, but not working together is definitely, I think, the number one challenge.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you very much, Ms. Redfern.

We're now going to begin with questions, starting with the Conservatives.

We will go to Ms. Falk for six minutes.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Thank you very much for each of your testimonies and information. There are a couple of things I wanted to comment on.

Ms. Redfern, before you were interrupted in your remarks, I wanted to make a comment on when you put your name on a ballot to serve communities. I want to thank you for doing that, because each one of us knows how difficult that is, but I wanted to make a note about the bureaucracy. In my previous working experience, cutting red tape and bureaucracy is one of the reasons.... Having all this red tape everywhere made my job harder. It was harder to be able to assist people, so I think you make a great point about the lack of coordination. I don't think it's just on this file, I actually think it's overlapping on a lot of different subjects.

I also wanted to say to Ms. Johnston, I believe it was, on the bricks and mortar, “more than bricks and mortar”, we've heard that a lot within this study thus far. Also you made a comment about the need to build community. I'm a big advocate for community. I'm a mom of young kids. I think we need more community in society as a whole, and it's so important, especially when we talk about recovery or we talk about healing and reconciliation. That's such an important component in all of this, not just when it comes to housing but in society as a whole.

The first question I have would be for Mr. Morrison or Mr. Sutherland. My riding is very rural. I wouldn't say we're remote, but it could be remote. If you're three hours away from a store, for example, in my mind, that's the definition of “remote”. If you have no way to get there because there's no public transportation, and you may not have a vehicle, I see that as remote. I'm just wondering about the difference between urban, rural and remote homelessness and what that looks like.

[Jeff Morrison]

Perhaps I can start off.

Thank you, Ms. Falk, for the question. Coming from a small northern Ontario town myself, I can appreciate that.

There has, at times, almost been a stigma or perhaps a perception that homelessness is a downtown city problem. Certainly it is. I'm sitting in downtown Ottawa. I live downtown, I walk home 10 minutes and I'll see a number of homeless people on my walk. I'm sure any downtown core will face the same, but it's not confined in any way, shape or form to our urban centres. In fact, in rural settings, whether it's rural Nova Scotia, rural Alberta, no matter where in the country, homelessness is present. There's actually an organization that's been created, the National Alliance to End Rural and Remote Homelessness, to address this problem head on.

It's often, though, more hidden in rural and remote settings. It tends to be more in the form of couch surfing. It's not as visible. In terms of a distinction, I would argue that, in fact, although the circumstances and the causes are certainly unique, the prevalence of it is certainly equal in either rural or urban settings.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Thank you.

My follow-up for that is this: Is there a difference in programs that are available for rural and remote versus urban? In the fight against homelessness, do people in these areas have the same access or do they meet the same qualifications as, say, an urban organization?

[Jeff Morrison]

One of the challenges facing rural communities or smaller communities, at least from a federal perspective, is that under the federal Reaching Home program, there are a number of community advisory boards, CABs, which serve as, essentially, the local coordinator for homelessness services in those regions. I may be corrected on the number. I believe there were 62 prior to the most recent expansion of Reaching Home. However, that still leaves a large number of more rural and smaller communities out of those CABs, out of those structures. Something we had called for some time ago was an increase in the number of CABs available.

In terms of the service, can you find, for example, front-line support services in a rural community versus an urban one? It's a greater challenge, for sure.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Ms. Redfern, I just saw you shaking your head. Do you have anything to add to that?

[Madeleine Redfern]

I think it's important to realize that there are 3,500 municipalities in this country. There are 62 designated communities under Reaching Home. That falls significantly short in covering every municipality.

I agree that there is a lot of undetected homelessness in our communities, especially in the north where you can't live out on the streets. You would simply perish.

The big distinction or difference is that in the most remote areas, you can't just hop on a Greyhound bus and get to an urban centre. The cost of an airline ticket out to Ottawa is at least, on a good day, $2,000. When you're homeless here, you don't even have the benefit of being able to get to an urban centre. Yes, we know there are never enough shelters, but there are often more services available in those urban areas.

Even in Iqaluit we have three or four shelters. We have a soup kitchen and two food banks. In some communities there are no shelters. There are no food banks. There is literally nothing, so it is that much harder for those people to get services, especially if they're dealing with addiction or mental health issues. You can't even get from the nearby community of Kimmirut to Iqaluit without having several hundred dollars, and that's just for a one-way ticket.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Ms. Redfern and Ms. Falk.

Next is Mr. Dong.

Go ahead, please, for six minutes.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

First, I want to thank all the witnesses for offering their time, advice and observations. I had some questions coming into today's meeting and your information definitely helped me to answer some of those questions. I will try my best to ask questions to all three groups.

First, to Ms. Redfern, thank you very much for your advocacy and your years of service to your community.

In terms of meeting the government's objectives to eliminate chronic homelessness in Canada, what measures specifically do you see as being needed in this new strategy to end homelessness in the north?

[Madeleine Redfern]

I'm a data geek, and I think it's important for my territorial government to actually get a little bit better data. We know that at least 3,000 houses are required in this territory of approximately 38,000 people.

The biggest issue, as I said, is having all three levels of government and Inuit organizations working better together. I actually recognize that my Inuit organizations have quite a lot of money in the bank and are going to get a lot more money from the resource development. I think the only way to solve that is by seeing the Inuit organizations play a bigger role in using some of the millions, if not billions, of dollars that we have to help our people out of homelessness.

That requires a bit of a change in the leadership mindset, which is a perception that only the federal government and sometimes the territorial government have a responsibility to deal with this. As I said, the money in the bank doesn't really help anyone at the end of the day.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Wait just a second, Mr. Dong.

Ms. Redfern, the sound quality from your mike is causing some challenges with the interpretation. I'm not sure that there is anything we can do about it, except to ask you to speak slowly and clearly, and we'll do the best we can.

Go ahead, Mr. Dong.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Thank you, Chair. I hope I get that half-minute back in my total allotment.

Thank you very much, Ms. Redfern. Having that change to the mindset of leadership was a very good recommendation.

My second question is to Ms. Johnston. Thank you very much for sharing with us the story of Raphael. It was very powerful and I think it will stick with me for quite some time, guiding my work going forward.

In terms of housing for indigenous people in urban or rural settings, do you think that the existing housing stock is adequate to meet the cultural needs of indigenous communities? What should be done to address it if it's not adequate?

[Heather Johnston]

Thank you.

I can really only speak to the urban situation. That's where I work and that's what I know best. My work is very much focused in downtown Montreal so I'll speak specifically to that. I would say the housing stock is definitely not sufficient. It's not sufficient in either quantity or quality. Obviously we look at the numbers of indigenous people who are homeless in urban Montreal. We know there's a lack of affordable housing on the market and obviously that seems to be easing a little bit in Montreal and other urban areas with the pandemic. However, the stock that is coming on the market is not necessarily affordable housing.

I think the more important issue that I tried to raise is in the type of housing that is available. What's really missing is this supported housing, what we call “housing with wraparound services”. A lot of the social housing units available in Quebec are single units. They are often out in the suburbs. There are very few supports that go with it. Time and time again, our experience has been that when we try to put people from our community who have been using the shelter—and who may have been chronically homeless for years—into that type of housing, it is not adapted to their needs. Often within months, they are back on the street.

That also goes back to the question of community, but having the supports in place to allow people who are chronically homeless and have mental health or addiction issues to live independently takes those wraparound services. When those are not available, when we put people in individual units out in the suburbs with no supports, that does not respond to the question of homelessness or to the need for housing in any way, shape or form.