[Witness spoke in Kwak'wala]
[English]
My name is Coreen Child. I am Kwakiutl from the northern end of Vancouver Island. I'm zooming in today from the Lekwungen territory, specifically the Esquimalt and Songhees nations. I honour them for allowing me to be here today.
Thank you very much for having this important conversation on indigenous housing.
As the Aboriginal Coalition to End Homelessness, we have an island-wide mandate. We're specifically serving the indigenous population of individuals who are experiencing homelessness here in Victoria. What I'm hoping to highlight for you today.... I won't spend too much time. I've actually looked at and viewed some of the conversations that have happened, and I know that the stats and the data and the numbers, the numbers of incarceration and all of the papers that we have on that research, are there and present. What I'm hoping to share today is a bit about the solutions around asking the federal government to look at the indigenous organizations that are doing the services directly on the ground that impact indigenous communities that are experiencing chronic homelessness or needing other alternatives.
The Aboriginal Coalition to End Homelessness has been.... The birth of it happened about five years ago with a study. We didn't initially plan to be a service provider, but what we realized is that with the connection to the indigenous street community, we needed to address some of the words that were being shared with the ones experiencing homelessness. We have now become a service provider. We've opened up two houses, but the one thing I want to highlight in the work that we've done is that we've grown exponentially because of the need: 35% of the indigenous people we're serving here in Victoria are experiencing homelessness. We've grown 700% in the past 23 months, going from seven staff to now over 70.
With that being said, as a non-profit organization, that really connects us to having to apply for funding streams and compete with each other, which isn't necessarily always the best avenue to build something unique and innovative, which I'll be sharing with you. Through the work that we've done with the indigenous street community, we have evolved and developed what's called “cultural supportive housing”. Cultural supportive housing is more than cultural safety. It's more than offering four walls. It's really having indigenous-led practices so that we can incorporate our teachings and our knowledge and our way of life into some of the practices and services that are desperately needed.
One thing that I specifically remember hearing, going out to visit some of our street community, is “I want to have indigenous people serving me, people looking like you and supporting me and telling me your success stories of how to get out of this.” Cultural supportive housing is not defined. It is something that is growing and lives and breathes every day. We have cultural mentors and supports that come in.
The other area we're working on is decolonizing harm reduction, so that's meeting people where they're at, bringing in elders, bringing in traditional medicine, and with that, connecting to land-based healing. One of our main focuses is getting our people off the street, taking a break from the cement and the sounds, and going out onto the land, connecting them to their traditional foods, creating healthy values and creating a healthy awareness of themselves. That has been integral.
I really hope the federal government looks at the landscape of supporting organizations like ours directly and does not necessarily get us to compete for those funds, but realizes that we're making an impact on the ground that is actually creating sustainable efforts. Some of the people we've housed are housed longer than a year and we're celebrating that with them. That's because there's love in our organization and in our delivery of services, and that is something I hold very near and dear. I'm proud of our amazing team and the leadership that is here.
We're not doing things out of “This is what we think. We're the professionals.” We're going to them to get the guidance on what it needs to look like: How do we get you out of lineups? How do we get you feeling that you're not entering the building and being documented at every move? How do we make your house a home and a place you can be proud of and familiar with, away from systems that have held you oppressed?
I'm really looking forward to sharing further. Thank you very much.
Gilakas'la.