On Friday November 25th, members of the Indigenous Caucus at CHRA joined with Indigenous housing leaders from across the country to create a new alliance: The National Urban, Rural and Northern Indigenous Housing Coalition. This coalition has come together to create and deliver a national urban, rural, and northern Indigenous housing strategy.

“It was an absolute privilege to bear witness to a transformative moment in time, resulting from amazing leadership,” said Timothy Crooks, President of CHRA, “the CHRA Board stands fully beside our Indigenous housing colleagues in support and solidarity.”

The Indigenous Housing Caucus at CHRA was established in 2013 to recognize the large number of Indigenous-led and Indigenous-serving organizations who wanted to work together for better housing for northern, rural, and urban First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Peoples. Indigenous housing and homelessness service providers across the country face several challenges to which the Indigenous Caucus is responding to with resourcefulness, good management, and innovation.

Canada’s National Housing Strategy has had a glaring gap: the absence of an urban, rural, and northern Indigenous Housing Strategy. Approximately 80% of Indigenous people live in urban, rural, and northern settings away from Indigenous-governed territories and settlements. The gap in housing outcomes compared to the general population in Canada, underlines the need to prioritize Indigenous housing solutions. Importantly, these solutions must be designed and delivered by Indigenous peoples.

CHRA and its board of directors calls for the Government of Canada to work with the National URN Indigenous Housing Coalition to fund a for-Indigenous, by-Indigenous urban, rural, and northern housing strategy.

We are calling on the federal government to:

  • Support the National URN Indigenous Housing Coalition, in creating an independent national Indigenous-led housing body that will design and deliver a National Urban, Rural, Northern Indigenous Housing Strategy
  • Commit $6B in the 2023 federal budget to fund the first year of the URN Indigenous housing strategy

Read the Declaration.