Human Resources committee  Good evening, everyone. It is my pleasure to be here with you. This is my first time attending this committee. I have been with the Métis Urban Housing Corporation for the last eight years, and I have witnessed many successes and challenges in this organization while I've been

Human Resources committee  Thank you for your question. Actually, we have experienced many challenges during the past 10 years.

Human Resources committee  Not just our organizations, but our clients have experienced many successes and failures as we navigated through the system and processes. Even though the conversation about adequate and affordable housing is years old, the current pandemic has brought to light that we do not hav

Human Resources committee  That is correct. What support we have seen so far has been in capital investment. As a non-profit organization, we act as an arm of our government to provide affordable and subsidized housing. Providing capital investment is just like hoping your handicapped child will run a mar

Human Resources committee  What I have seen is that giving rental subsidies is not enough. There have to be wraparound supports to those people. They require support for the mental health issues they have. They require support around those. They require support on how to parent their little children. They

Human Resources committee  We have seen a huge shortage in the housing inventory. It is inadequate. We see more two-bedroom or three-bedroom homes, when what we need is homes with more bedrooms. This is one need. The other thing is that we have actually forgotten remote areas. We have provided infrastruct

Human Resources committee  Thank you for this question. Actually, right now what we are dealing with is a shortage of housing, not just for our young people or our students but also for indigenous seniors. We are a Métis organization, and we do not have a Métis-specific senior facility where we provide al

Human Resources committee  That is correct. We can certainly help, and we can certainly suggest what we can do. I had an opportunity with Alberta Health Services where they asked for a supported-living care facility proposal. We have done that. However, the problem is that there is so much time required

Human Resources committee  I was just born at that time.

Human Resources committee  As I mentioned earlier, we highly depend on government support for our operations. Right now at Métis Urban Housing Corporation we are running our operations under the operating agreements we have with Alberta Seniors and Housing. These agreements will be expiring come 2022, and

Human Resources committee  Right now the houses we own were given to us by CMHC. Those homes are very old, maybe 50 to 70 years old. If you were going to convert those homes to meet the cultural requirements of indigenous people, you would have to tear them down. They are full of asbestos. They require a l

Human Resources committee  Overall, the need of indigenous people is similar, but we do see a difference from location to location, depending on what services are available in that location. For example, we have no housing in Conklin. I keep using this as an example, because I was there a few months ago. I

Human Resources committee  We are very grateful for whatever support we are getting from the federal government. We are doing our best to create more housing inventory. Again, to maintain and continuously provide that housing, we need continuous support. That is where a gap lies. If we do not have that sup

Human Resources committee  I don't know if this is sufficient or not, but this is a huge support, definitely, in an area where we see a challenge. Here we rely on who is on Métis Nation of Alberta's registry. Not everybody is identifying themselves as Métis. Not everybody is registered with Métis Nation of

Human Resources committee  I don't know if this is adequate or not. I can't comment on that. The thing is, we are able to provide various supports to Métis citizens who are registered with Métis Nation of Alberta. In Alberta, we are also conducting a province-wide needs assessment, which will also bring to