Indigenous organizations can apply to lead new national housing centre in new year
Request for proposals expected in January
The federal government will be choosing an Indigenous-led organization to lead a National Indigenous Housing Centre in the new year and some housing advocates are cautiously optimistic about the new plan.
On Wednesday, the government announced it will put out a request for proposals (RFP) in January for Indigenous-led organizations that are "national in scope" to apply to lead the new centre.
The process for choosing an organization will be managed by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). In an email to CBC News, CMHC said the process "will offer an open and transparent opportunity for interested Indigenous-led organizations."
CMHC said what the National Indigenous Housing Centre will look like will be at the discretion of the organization that is successful in the RFP, but it will "provide funding to address core Indigenous housing needs in urban, rural and northern areas."
More details on the RFP requirements will not be made public until it is open in the new year.
Sim'oogit Saa-Bax Patrick Stewart, a hereditary chief of the Nisga'a Nation and senior director of designated homeless services for Lu'ma Native Housing Society, said the RFP makes this a competitive process, and not inclusive.
"Having Indigenous groups compete against each other for this federal program ... is not the best way to do it," said Stewart.
"We have national [Indigenous] political organizations, but not a national housing organization."
The National Indigenous Housing Centre is a step in the creation of the Urban, Rural and Northern Indigenous Housing Strategy.
The federal government allocated $300 million in 2022 toward the development and launch of the strategy. An additional $4 billion over seven years starting in 2024-25 was committed in the 2023 budget.
"It is a step and it's a much-needed step and I think it needs to go further though," said Stewart.
He said there's a need for billions of dollars to construct homes amid the continued rise in the number of people experiencing homelessness, as shown in the 2023 Metro Vancouver homelessness count.
In March 2023, 4,821 people were counted as experiencing homelessness in metro Vancouver, up 32 per cent from 2020. Of individuals counted this year, 821 people — 33 per cent — identified as Indigenous.
The metro Vancouver homelessness count said Indigenous people are 13 times more likely to be homeless than non-Indigenous people and are homeless longer, younger and have more health conditions.
According to CMHC housing needs statistics on urban, rural and northern Indigenous people, Indigenous households represent five per cent of Canadian households but account for seven per cent of households in housing need.
Winnipeg has the greatest prevalence of Indigenous households in housing need at 9,000, followed by Vancouver at 8,000, according to CMHC.
"I think it's solvable," said Stewart.
"You look at the housing issues and it's people that created the housing issues. We have to now figure a way to solve those."
NICHI to apply for RFP
A coalition of Indigenous-led housing organizations in urban, rural and Northern communities, called the National Indigenous Collaborative Housing Incorporated (NICHI), created in 2022, will be putting its name in for the RFP, according to its board of directors chair Jocelyn Formsma.
The organization has over 50 organizations as members, including the National Association of Friendship Centres (NAFC), of which Formsma is the CEO. She said NAFC wants to see NICHI lead the new National Indigenous Housing Centre.
Formsma said the individual organizations within NICHI have been advocating for decades for a national housing initiative.
"Now the time is right," she said.
Formsma said besides the need to build more homes, there needs to be wrap-around services that are culturally informed and help people being housed to keep up with the costs of maintaining a home.
Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, Pauktuutit Inuit Women in Canada, and the Assembly of First Nations did not respond to a request for comment by time of publishing.
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