Human Resources Committee on Dec. 3rd, 2020

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks to the panellists for being here today. I really admire the work your organizations are doing. I spent a little time last night researching both, and Ms. McGee, I'll start with a few questions for you on Homeward Trust Edmonton.

I was really impressed by your updated plan on your website and the dashboard, and how you're measuring toward ending homelessness. I understand that you're distributing funds through Reaching Home and you're funding, I think you said, 14 indigenous-led organizations. Is that correct?

[Susan McGee]

Currently, yes.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Okay, great. Do you think that Reaching Home is meeting the needs of urban, rural and northern indigenous people?

[Susan McGee]

There's real strength to the way the program is delivered. It is really important to underscore that. It focuses on community-led decision-making and engages the community advisory board structure. Often we find it's difficult to have a really consistent systems and coordinated approach when there's a lack of coordination, and the Reaching Home program really drives that. We have seen increases in the available funding through Reaching Home that have been really critical, and more to our point in Edmonton, we are seeing increases for the first time in homelessness since we began our work in the housing first program in 2009. We had had an overall reduction in homelessness, but are seeing it go up, which is going to make it difficult for to maintain our pace of housing and continue to see that decrease in that circumstance. That's going to require more resources, but there are really effective aspects of the program that I think need to be acknowledged.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

That's great. Are there any improvements that you want to mention that need to be made?

[Susan McGee]

I think we are all absolutely exhausted by this pandemic, and it's very concerning and, quite frankly, scary. We have numerous outbreaks in our projects right now. However, we've learned a few things and I think that some of those things can be a bit of a silver lining, in that we are rolling out resources much more quickly and effectively and are able to make decisions in a much more compressed time frame.

I'm really hoping this is a learning and that we'll not go back to a pre-pandemic approach, once we can put this behind us. I think this is an area of improvement. There's a higher level of efficiency in the decisions that get made locally.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

In terms of truly undertaking this study and wanting to get the best possible outcome for urban, rural and northern indigenous people and their housing needs, what advice do you have for us on where this study should land?

Mr. Lawson-Swain, I'm going to ask you the same question afterwards because I'm sure you're going to have something significant to contribute to this as well.

Ms. McGee, I'll start with you.

[Susan McGee]

I tried to allude to it in my opening remarks, but I really do believe that we have some exceptional leadership in organizations that have been in a “hurry up and stand still” situation—certainly prior to the national housing strategy and currently with the expectation that there is going to be another specific indigenous urban, rural and northern component to that, but it's not happening fast enough. I think there's a bit of a preoccupation, quite frankly, with respect to having a lot of precision on really big numbers, in terms of need, when our resources are so shy of what we actually need.

So I think we need to move out of a planning space and into an action-oriented space and get those resources out the door and trust the organizations that exist to do that.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Lawson-Swain, do you want to add to that or build on it, or just make some other suggestion?

[Marcel Lawson-Swain]

I would go a step further. I think what we need to do at this point in time is to create legislation for a national indigenous housing coalition from across the country. We should start with legislation, select people from across the country to sit on that national indigenous housing council and come to a quick agreement on the amount of funds that are needed to put that into action.

I agree with Ms. McGee. There is a lot of emphasis placed on what number we should select as far as the needs go and what budget to come up with. In my mind, we could easily look at $2.5 billion to $5 billion a year over the next 10 years.

In addition to this amount of money for the capital side of things, we need to recognize that there was a program in place at one time under section 56.1 of the National Housing Act. It really was the gold star of social housing across the country for urban indigenous housing providers because it not only provided resources for the capital funds, but also provided operating subsidies, which is the piece that's mandatory for urban native housing societies to function as non-profits.

There is no revenue in this. We're trying to meet the deepest needs of people across the country and the hardest to house, so we can't be looking at market housing and expecting organizations to pay market rents so that we can pay for mortgages.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Turnbull.

Ms. Chabot, you have the floor for six minutes, please.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My sincere thanks to the witnesses for joining us. We have messed up your schedules.

First, on behalf of all my colleagues here, I want to apologize for the absence of Grand Chief Simon, who was one of the witnesses from my region. We have tried to contact him too; he probably has a good reason for not being with us. I am sorry about that; I am sure that he is sorry as well.

My first question goes to Chief Leon.

Thank you for joining us. Maybe someone did push you to be here, but they certainly had good reasons to do so. Your testimony showed us that, and I was particularly struck by it. I have questions about what you said.

You need to increase the supply of affordable housing. You talked about problems with the lack of housing, but especially about problems with mould and renovations. That is your reality. You are on a reserve.

Here is my question: how do the federal housing strategy programs apply? How are you able to succeed in solving those issues with federal programs?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Chief Leon, that one was for you, I believe.

[Chief Ralph Leon Jr.]

Thank you for the question, but I don't understand French so I don't know what the question was.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Chief, on the bottom of your screen you'll see a globe that says “Interpretation”. If you press on that, it will give you three options: “English”, “French” and “Floor”. If you press “English” you will get simultaneous interpretation of everything Madame Chabot says.

Ms. Chabot, I can start your time again.

You can ask your question again; the witness now has access to the interpretation.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Okay. I will ask my question more quickly.

Chief Leon, thank you for your testimony about the reality of the community on your reserve.

In light of the problems you shared with us, namely the lack of affordable housing and the state of that housing, do you have access to funding specifically for indigenous communities?

That is one of the components of the national housing strategy; it is designed to provide housing for communities. There is also a component for Indigenous peoples.

Is that a program that you take advantage of and that is able to meet your needs?

[Chief Ralph Leon Jr.]

First of all, thank you for the question.

Like I said, in our home, our community, the membership is at about 1,200 people who are registered here on reserve, and we have 198 homes here to house. That creates a problem. More than half of them need to live off reserve to gain a home to live in.

Like Lawson-Swain and McGee said, a lot of our people from our communities end up in a situation where they have to go to them to get housed.

What we're trying to do here in Sts'ailes is to create the micro homes, which have only one or two bedrooms. It's more affordable to get them started. We utilize CMHC still to this day, and we also utilize ISC, Indian Affairs. We use the subsidy from ISC, which still creates almost a problem of affordability. The money from Indian Affairs is very minimal. It pays for maybe only a foundation and a septic field, and that's it.

Also, to get the people homes, they need a job. They need to prove themselves through their finance to gain a home themselves as individual purchases. We have many problems that overlap each other. It creates a big problem. In the leadership at home, we do want them at home, but like Mr. Lawson-Swain said, we need to build probably at least 100 homes a day for a year for them all to be at home.

Thank you for your question.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you.

My next question goes to Ms. McGee.

We are familiar with a 2017 report by your organization that indicates that, despite progress over the last 10 years, a large gap still exists between the needs and the results in housing.

You indicated that you need funding to the tune of $230 million from now until 2022.

Which sources of federal funding can help you and support your efforts?

[Susan McGee]

Currently, we do administer the Reaching Home funding. Throughout the pandemic, there have been some allocations to be really heightening our response specifically during the pandemic.

One asterisk or caveat I would put on that report is that at the time we were celebrating a 45% reduction in our homeless numbers in our community. We've had a very confident and robust housing first program. Since the pandemic has started, we have been housing at a pace of about 120 to 140 people a month, but we've also had more inflow into homelessness than we've had housing. Our numbers are now going up. We are back up from 1,500 at the time to now almost 2,000 people on our buy names list.

To speculate on the total number on funding, based on that $230 million, would take some additional work, but from a federal perspective, the Reaching Home dollars play a very critical role. Also, I think, in various parts of this committee's work, as well as things we've learned in the pandemic, there is the importance of other areas. This is a public health crisis. We are working really hard with different areas of government to bring to bear additionally on the Reaching Home dollars other program dollars. Really, it's been through that Reaching Home priority-setting and the national housing strategy that all of those bars need to be set.

I don't have an easy answer to say what other areas of government could complement or make this all work, but I do think that it all needs to come together through a coordinated effort.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Ms. McGee.

Thank you, Ms. Chabot.

Ms. Gazan, you are next, for six minutes.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to all of the witnesses for being here today.

My first question is for Mrs. McGee.

This summer I introduced a motion to convert the CERB into a permanent guaranteed livable basic income, as a step toward ensuring that every person living in Canada is able to live in dignity and with human rights.

Based on data, the basic income I was proposing was meant to centre those in society who needed it most. It's now clear that indigenous people are some of the most unhoused people living in Canada.

In addition, the national inquiry also called for a guaranteed livable basic income in its call for justice 4.5 to ensure a guaranteed livable basic income for all Canadians, including indigenous people, to meet their social and economic needs.

How do you believe a permanent guaranteed livable basic income could help ensure that indigenous people are able to access housing, and have their right to housing met?

[Susan McGee]

Homeward Trust focuses a lot on data and numbers. I will confess that a lot of our focus is on those in our community who wouldn't even qualify for the CERB at this point, because it did require pre-employment, etc.

Having said that, one of our experiences during the pandemic heightens the fact that we don't know what we don't know. The inflow into homelessness, with so many people are experiencing poverty for the first time, is a result of the circumstances that are directly related to poverty and a lack of income.

It is that need for an income, and to pre-empt an experience where ultimately homelessness erodes so many other aspects of health and mental health for individuals. Those are some of the areas we are acutely aware of. Those pressures are far higher than we estimated in terms of the vulnerability of people who, because of a lack of income, are so on the verge of an experience of homelessness.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I agree 100%. We're seeing first-time homelessness at a higher rate now as a result of the pandemic. It's totally concerning.

My next question is for Mr. Lawson-Swain. I appreciated your comments. We have heard from previous witnesses that, in comparison with what is currently being offered by the federal government for housing, massive sustainable investments are required to ensure housing for indigenous people.

I appreciated your comments noting systemic racism. If you look at the history of wilful underfunding of first nations, it is really an example of systemic racism in real time.

Could you expand a bit more on that?

[Marcel Lawson-Swain]

Tansi, boozhoo.

That is a really tough question. It's not easy to answer that.

Locally, in Vancouver, we have been calling for the government to begin the work of reconciliation by doing audits of systemic barriers to see what policies and laws exist that pose discrimination or systemic discrimination for indigenous people.

On the one hand, when government is doing reconciliation pieces, we're finding, locally here, that often government departments are working toward places where they're taking urban indigenous people and lumping them into an equity policy. We find that somewhat disrespectful, with respect to the unique and distinct history of indigenous people in this country, to find ourselves being assimilated into another process of equality, and assimilating us through equity provisions.

I don't know if that answers your question, but we need to do more nationally in this country to assess all of the rules, policies and laws that create systemic barriers for our people. That, I don't believe, has been done.

Hopefully, with Bill C-15 and the new issues with respect to UNDRIP, we will find ways to weed through those policies and become more effective with the work that we're doing nationally.