Thank you. My name is John Gordon. I am the CEO of National Indigenous Collaborative Housing Inc. I'm very pleased to be here today to appear in front of the committee and offer my insights into the matters being studied.

NICHI, National Indigenous Collaborative Housing Inc. is a collaboration of 147 indigenous housing providers from across Canada from coast to coast to coast. We support indigenous people living in urban, rural and northern communities. We are built on the principle of co-operation, collaboration and a for indigenous, by indigenous approach. NICHI works to ensure that no indigenous person is left behind due to their residency or geographic location.

While NICHI's governance, management and operational structure may be new, our 147 members are not. They have been around for years. Some of these organizations started in the 1970s and 1980s, collectively providing hundreds of years of experience and ensuring NICHI's direction is informed by urban indigenous realities from the ground up.

In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, indigenous people migrated significantly to urban, rural and northern areas, leading to the development of numerous programs and services by the Government of Canada. However, the federal government ceased direct funding for housing in the early 1990s and devolved the delivery, as Ray mentioned, to provincial and territorial governments. This shift led to indigenous housing providers advocating at that time for a for indigenous, by indigenous approach. The national aboriginal housing association was formed in 1994; however, it never took off or received recognition from the federal government.

In 2006, the federal government injection of $300 million for off-reserve indigenous housing through a trust fund was variably effective across regions. It worked well at times in areas where provincial indigenous housing co-operation was already existing, while in other circumstances it did not work well. The key takeaway is there was, and still is, no consistency across the provincial governments of how indigenous housing is delivered in urban, rural and northern settings.

For example, Ontario pulled its $80-million share into a provincial trust fund and did not release those funds until 2009. That resulted in delayed builds for three full years. Those were three cold winters if people were living on the street with no safe shelter or supportive affordable housing. In contrast, B.C. and Saskatchewan took on approaches to enhance capacity funding for urban housing organizations with Métis and first nation affiliations.

What is a more effective approach, and one that NICHI advocates for and recommends, is to work nationally and across the spectrum of distinctions-based allocations while also building local capacities and community-driven approaches to urban indigenous housing, one that is not turning away individuals based on indigenous identities from one or another affiliation, but rather is recognizing the diversity of the indigenous community with urban, rural and northern areas and providing housing first.

Future investments most importantly must be designed and delivered not by provinces, but for indigenous people, by indigenous people. Urban, rural and northern indigenous housing providers must be brought to the same table as provinces and territories and funded as equal partners on a longer-term basis to craft sustainable and responsive and community-driven housing solutions instead of inadequate stopgap measures that leave vulnerable individuals out in the cold.

While 2006 to 2015 saw some funding for affordable and co-operative housing and limited investment in indigenous housing, the same period was marked by significant challenges for housing for indigenous people in Canada. This was particularly true for those living in urban, rural and northern communities who were effectively shortchanged because of where they lived in Canada.

The Government of Canada announced in 2017 its national housing strategy with the glaring omission of a specific approach for indigenous housing in urban, rural and northern areas. Past mistakes of funds languishing in trust funds or slow-moving federal departments are painful and frustrating to the very real and very urgent unmet shelter needs of indigenous people in urban, rural and northern communities across Canada.

In 2022, 20 indigenous housing organizations came together and signed a declaration to create a national indigenous housing organization. In December 2022, National Indigenous Collaborative Housing Inc. was established as a federal non-profit entity.

In June 2023, Indigenous Services Canada entered into a funding agreement to provide $281.5 million to address urgent and unmet needs. Within just over a year and a half, indigenous housing providers and urban indigenous people were able to start their national indigenous housing association and secure the release of almost $300 million.

This is lightning speed when compared to government processes. The entirety of the operation was overseen and well executed by indigenous staff, board of volunteers and contractors. We deserve credit for this.

Census 2021 indicated that most indigenous people across Canada reside in urban and rural communities.

Am I past my time?