Spacing and the Balanced Supply of Housing research node proudly present The Overhead: Understanding Canada’s Affordable Housing Crisis, a special podcast series.
THIS EPISODE: Indigenous-led Housing
What does Indigenous housing look like? Are there special forms of housing needed by Indigenous communities in particular to address specific health and community needs? And what kind of housing can be built when Indigenous people in charge of the plans? In this episode, we try to address each of these questions.
First we speak to Dr. Maggie Low, assistant professor at the School of Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia. She’s been studying how municipal governments respond to Indigenous housing needs:
The municipalities that had or were developing working, meaningful, respectful relationships with the Aboriginal Housing Management Association, with the urban Indigenous diaspora, with the local nations… that was a very key factor in if you’re seeing urban Indigenous housing needs showing up in housing strategies or official community plans.
Dr. Maggie Low
Next, we speak to Dr. Alexandra Flynn, associate professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law, UBC, about Indigenous zoning and housing developments in Metro Vancouver:
On one hand it’s true that on reserve land isn’t subject to municipal bylaws, and so First Nations can decide what the built form is going to look like. But the truth is reserve territory is very encumbered by the Indian Act, which sets out how, exactly, First Nations and their councils are able to make decisions.
Dr. Alexandra Flynn
Finally, we speak with Bailey Waukey, a youth policy analyst with the Aboriginal Housing Management Association, about the different housing models Indigenous youth have asked for themselves through a special engagement process:
If you could, hypothetically, copy/paste the types of housing we see in other parts of the world or even that we constructed in this country 100 years ago, just plopped it down as a unity for sale or for rent in the city, does anybody believe that that unit wouldn’t rent or sell?
Bailey Waukey
What does housing by Indigenous people, for Indigenous people look like in an increasingly urbanized world?
For more research related to this episode, visit our project pages below:
