Housing programs and projects are essential to the well-being of many Métis women, 2SLGBTQQIA+ folks, their families and our communities.
Many Métis families are multi-generational households, with Kookums living alongside infants and aunties, or lone-parent families, where a single parent takes care of the dependents in the home. Often these are very happy and healthy households.
However, living in a good neighbourhood, having space for your family and making ends meet isn’t always the reality for all Métis women and 2SLGBTQQIA+ folks. Domestic violence also plays a major role in many Métis women’s experiences of precarious housing and homelessness. In addition to long waits to access existing programs and services, many mainstream programs do not fully meet their needs and there are major gaps in available data on Métis women’s housing experiences.
LFMO aims to better understand Métis women’s needs, such as their experiences with emergency housing, transitional housing as well as home-buying and home-repair programs.
Recommendations
- Push for distinctions-based and gender disaggregated data collection regarding Métis housing experiences
- Examine the link between Métis housing, homelessness and domestic violence
- Examine the link between the dispossession and displacement of Métis from our land and the lack of safe and secure land bases for Métis
- Include Métis women and 2SLGBTQQIA+ folks at tables, working groups and work taken to understand Métis core housing needs
- Commit to systemic, long-term change by putting in place Métis housing service navigators to assist with processes such as home ownership programs, mortgage negotiations, budgeting, rental assistance, Métis homecare services, seniors’ housing, etc.
- Commit to the revision and expansion of ownership programs that are responsive to the needs of Métis women and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people as detailed in this Report, and this includes engaging in consultation work with them from the ground up, taking into account the system disadvantages they face
- Commit to the expansion of short-term housing solutions for Métis women and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people, with an expanded focus on transitional housing initiatives for Métis girls, women, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people, and their children, fleeing domestic violence and abuse
- Provide funding to all Indigenous based organizations for the provision of Métis-specific services
- Provide additional funding for research on the specific challenges the Métis women and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people experience today arising from the historical and contemporary challenges faced due to housing marginalization
- Develop targeted subsidized Métis-specific daycare programming that is responsive to, and reflective of local costs of living, housing, etc.
- Give back Métis land and commit funding for the rebuilding of historic Métis communities, particularly in the areas identified in this Report whereby the communities have suffered, and continue to suffer, greatly as a result of harmful government programming
