Evidence of meeting #5 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was centres.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Kate Young Liberal London West, ON
Dealing with indigenous homelessness means more than just putting a roof over someone's head.
Policy Director, Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres
Yes, 100%.
Liberal
Kate Young Liberal London West, ON
That's what I'm trying to get at. I want to understand why it would be different—
Policy Director, Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres
Sure.
Liberal
Policy Director, Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres
I'll give you the example of Sioux Lookout where the friendship centre came to an agreement with the Ontario Aboriginal Housing Services corporation and the district social service administration board. Most of the country doesn't know what it is, but it's a municipal-level social service delivery administrative body.
What happened there is that the housing services corporation built the housing, the service manager provided the land, and the agreement was that the friendship centre would provide the supports. If there had been no supports.... What ended up happening in Sioux Lookout was that you had 98% or 99% of the homeless population being indigenous.
The friendship centre stepped in to provide the service. It filled up immediately, and 20 people who had been chronically homeless are now getting the kinds of supports that they want because it is an indigenous service provider that provides culture-based services. Where that is not the case, people stay away.
It's simply a question of whether you want people to get the services or not, because people will stay away in large numbers if the services are not culture based.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you, Ms. Young.
Thank you, Ms. Nicolet.
Ms. Chabot, you have six minutes.
Bloc
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon, ladies. Your testimonies about the reality and the services you offer sheds light on work that is very important to the committee.
Ms. Nicolet, I'll address you first. I've read some of your writings. First of all, you mentioned that the friendship centres you represent already offer housing.
Is this the kind of service you want to continue to offer?
How could the National Housing Strategy help you in this regard?
Policy Director, Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres
Thank you very much for your question.
I'll continue in English, for the benefit of your colleagues.
First of all, we anticipate that friendship centres are going to get more involved in the delivery of housing, because it is such a significant need. In fact, if you would like to look at an example in Quebec, le Regroupement des centres d'amitié autochtones du Québec, is currently well into a phase of beginning to deliver housing to students and is expanding their housing approach.
This is something that is happening across the board, across the country. Housing is just an area that friendship centres are going to be delivering in.
What is the way that the national housing strategy could best serve us? The best thing would be to have a separate strategy that is specific to urban, rural and northern indigenous housing. Historically, indigenous interests, indigenous concerns, indigenous challenges and indigenous successes have never been addressed in the context of a mainstream approach.
A separate, specific approach to address these issues is what's required. Failing that, at a minimum, a set-aside needs to be created inside of the national housing strategy as it currently sits. Although this will be a flawed approach, it is what is needed at a minimum—an implementation that considers allocations made from a separate pot of money and delivered independently by an independent body directly to indigenous—
Policy Director, Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres
Yes, exactly, it would take a separate envelope.
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Sometimes we are led to believe that the National Housing Strategy is disappointing because it doesn't have a specific indigenous component. It's said that the strategy should have money earmarked for that. Beyond mere words, we are told that this would require real management of this money with the communities.
Are the current amounts sufficient to close all these gaps?
Policy Director, Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres
No, absolutely not.
Policy Director, Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres
As a starting point, an estimated minimum of $1 billion per year is required.
Ms. Camille actually said it quite clearly. There is such a high level of need that to actually make a significant impact, you have to allocate massive amounts of money.
To echo what Ms. Camille was talking about earlier, COVID exposed things, and what friendship centres ended up doing was playing catch-up on problems that have been entrenched for decades. These are systemic problems that you throw COVID money at, but COVID money is never going to actually address this. You need a massive investment.
Starting at $1 billion would be a great way to go. We could spend it.
Policy Director, Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres
Thank you.
Bloc
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Okay.
We're talking about homelessness. In the reading I did, I found it interesting that the definition of homelessness is different for indigenous people; it can have several components.
Ms. Nicolet, can you tell us the status of this initiative?
Do some components better meet the needs of the communities?
Policy Director, Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres
If I understood the question correctly, it deals with the different dimensions of homelessness in the indigenous community.
Did I understand the question correctly?
Bloc
Policy Director, Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres
Not in every case, but to some extent they are. Part of the challenge is also that there is insufficient indigenous control over some of the things taking place, and frankly, just an insufficient amount of money being thrown at these. One of the challenges we're having right now is this notion of coordinated access.
Coordinated access is not an approach that works for indigenous populations and communities. At least that's the position of a wide range of views in Ontario. There's an example of something being rolled out with not a huge amount of consideration for the specificities of indigenous populations. Yet again, that explains why a specific strategy is needed for urban, rural and northern indigenous housing.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you very much, Ms. Chabot and Ms. Nicolet.
Next is the NDP and Ms. Gazan, please, for six minutes.