APTN News: In early August, the Manitoba government paused the youth and homelessness streams of the Canada-Manitoba Housing Benefit (CMHB), which provides a rent top-up for low-income and at-risk populations.
The streams serve mostly Indigenous clientele including youth aging out of foster care and people experiencing or at risk of homelessness.
And the unexpected change now leaves several hundred people in Manitoba in limbo who applied for housing with the benefit in mind.
“The assumption is that they’re going to get the benefit, so they signed agreements,” said Shauna MacKinnon, a professor in the University of Winnipeg’s Department of Urban and Inner City Studies and member of the Right to Housing Coalition, “and then they go and they apply for the supplement because they can’t get the benefit until they actually have a signed agreement.
“So, then there is no agreement. If they can’t get the benefit then people don’t have the housing because they can’t pay for it.”
Impact on Indigenous Peoples
In the 2022 Street Census produced by End Homelessness Winnipeg, a whopping 68.2 per cent of the city’s homeless population identified as Indigenous.
At the same time, there is an over-representation of Indigenous youth – at least 90 per cent, according to statistics, in care of Manitoba Child and Family Services.
“We work with a lot of youth who are aging out of care and a lot of youth who are transitioning from homelessness into their first apartments, or their first place,” said Mary Burton, executive director of Zoongizi Ode (formerly Fearless R2W), an Indigenous-led organization that helps families and youth aging out of care.
“Without that benefit, they’re not going to be able to get a decent place to live.”
In an effort to help, the organization is planning to open a group of transitional housing units in October.
“Right now, we’re working on a transitional house with Raising the Roof and Siloam Mission, and the people who will be moving into that home are families that are reunifying with their children,” she said.
“Without that extra benefit, it’s going to be hard to house people in our home.”
Promises on pause?
Manitoba’s new NDP government vowed to end chronic homelessness in two terms.
But MacKinnon says pausing the benefit is a step backward.
APTN News requested an interview with Housing, Addictions and Homelessness Minister Bernadette Smith, however, she was not made available.
In a statement sent to APTN instead, the minister said the province is committed to ending chronic homelessness and blamed the previous government for not investing in long-term housing solutions.
The province is reviewing benefit applications to determine the best course of action, and looking at a variety of solutions to prevent homelessness, the statement added.