Toronto Star: From a family living for seven years in a condemned home that was meant to be temporary to people with disabilities having to be carried in and out of their bathrooms, Canada’s housing advocate says during a tour this fall of several Inuit communities she got a glimpse into the dire living conditions many have faced for years.
“The current levels of federal investments are not adequate to remedy the human rights violations caused by the housing shortage,” said Marie-Josee Houle.
The independent, non-partisan watchdog helps promote and protect the right to housing. Houle, who was appointed to the role this year, travelled in October to Nunavut and Nunatsiavut, an Inuit region in Newfoundland and Labrador.
“The purpose is to really learn more about systemic issues in the North that need really serious attention and to listen to people with lived experience of their housing precarity and homelessness,” she said of her trip. “That focus on the North is also because people don’t go there or they don’t have the opportunity to go there.”
Among the biggest takeaways, Houle said, was that housing is in short supply. Housing that is available is not in a good state, with issues like mould, or is otherwise unsuitable for elders or people with disabilities or children.
“The government neglect and underfunding for Inuit housing has absolutely taken its toll over the years,” she said. “Residents report a lack of trust in public institutions responsible for housing because the wait-lists are decades long and they’ve given up even applying for the housing programs.”
Houle said inadequate housing in the North has led to overcrowding, increased contact with the justice system, exacerbated mental health issues and tension among families. It also means many people are forced to leave their communities, which can result in isolation, racism and violence.
“If it’s not by choice, it can be a traumatizing experience for people,” she said. “There’s a lot of harrowing stories.”
The 2021 census found almost a third of the nearly 49,000 Inuit who live in Inuit Nunangat — or Inuit homeland in Canada comprising communities in Nunavut, Northwest Territories, Newfoundland and Labrador and northern Quebec — were living in dwellings in major need of repairs. More than half were living in crowded homes.
This is not the first time abysmal housing conditions have been documented in the North.
The Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples released a report in 2017 detailing the severity of the housing crisis in Inuit Nunangat. Former Nunavut NDP member of Parliament Mumilaaq Qaqqaq documented “inhumane” housing conditions in several communities in March 2021.
The federal government said it has made several investments in housing across Inuit Nunangat over the years.
That includes $256.7 million over two years in the 2016 budget, $400 million over 10 years in the 2018 budget and $845 million over seven years in the 2022 budget.