It was a full house at the Sagitawa Friendship Centre in Peace River today. Indigenous Relations Minister Richard Feehan was there to announce the Alberta Government’s first program to build affordable homes directly owned by Indigenous governments and organizations. The Indigenous Housing Capital Program will put $120-million towards increasing the amount of affordable homes for First-Nations people in Alberta.
Minister Feehan stood in front of representatives of local government and members of Indigenous communities as he explained the funding is part of a $1.2-billion dollar program to provide affordable housing throughout the whole province. He says the $120-million has been set aside for off-reserve housing, and this year $1-million has been provided to help organizations apply for the funding. Next year the amount of funding will increase to $17-million.
“We’re here today to talk about something I think is very important, and is connected to all our commitments to make life better, not only for all Albertans, but particularly in this case, for Indigenous peoples,” says Minister Feehan. “We did a process over the last year where we went around talking to Indigenous communities and we learned lots of lessons from that. There were about 16 different workshops in 13 different communities. We had about 211 communities talking to us about housing.”
Minister Feehan says after receiving the feedback, they learned some of the money going toward affordable housing needs to go directly to First-Nations communities. He notes they also learned that the best way to go about getting affordable housing to Indigenous communities is through grants. Feehan explains that by using grants, organizations can build the homes themselves, allowing them to build culturally appropriate housing. He explains how soon we see housing show up in Alberta depends on individual organizations and communities, but we can expect building to begin in 2020.
Minister Feehan says the grant money can be used for not only the construction of new homes, but also to create expansions onto houses and fix homes that are in disrepair.
During the announcement, Minister Feehan said organizations can now begin applying for grants, with the only major requirement being housing has to be designed and delivered by Indigenous organizations or governments.
-JD
