NDP's Singh says Canada needs 'for-Indigenous, by-Indigenous' housing strategy

Speaking in front of the former Kamloops residential school, federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh said a for-Indigenous, by-Indigenous housing strategy is needed to address a disproportionate number of First Nations people facing homelessness.

Singh met Thursday with Tk’emlups te Secwepemc council and Kukpi7 Rosanne Casimir and visited the site of the former Kamloops residential school, where a memorial has been set up to honour over 200 children recently found buried in the area.

The stop in Kamloops was part of Singh’s week-long tour of Indigenous communities across the country.

“We need a for-Indigenous, by Indigenous housing strategy. And by doing that, we would be really walking the path of reconciliation,” Singh said.

According to data from the City of Kamloops’ 2021 point-in-time homeless count — a count that tallies the number of people experiencing homelessness on city streets in a 24-hour period — 222 people were identified as experiencing homelessness in the Tournament Capital.

Of those, 50 per cent of respondents identified as Indigenous. According to the 2016 census, 11 per cent of the general population is Indigenous.

“Part of reconciliation, and part of making it right, is to acknowledge that harm was done, and that we’ve got to make sure that we support communities that have been hurt so badly. And one of those impacts is homelessness,” Singh said.

“There is a reason why disproportionately Indigenous people are faced with poverty, are faced with homelessness. They are the survivors of such immense trauma. So I’ve met with a number of Indigenous community organizations that are calling for a for-Indigenous, by-Indigenous housing strategy, particularly in urban centres.”

Singh said this presents an opportunity to help make things right by investing in that housing strategy and building places for people to live.

In a news conference following a meeting with TteS leadership, Singh called for more direct action to be taken to further reconciliation.

He said Canada has a responsibility to support Indigenous communities by providing the funding necessary to help facilitate healing and further searches for graves.

Singh said a main takeaway from his meeting with Casimir and council was that Indigenous communities have solutions ready, but they need to have adequate funding to provide services to their community.

“There was an overlying theme of the Indigenous community and leadership have a lot of the answers, they are on the ground, they know problems, and they have a lot of the solutions," Singh said.

"They just need an ally, a partner that's working with them, not telling them what to do, but working in partnership, and I think that’s an important approach."