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.