Attawapiskat's housing crisis: A ground-level perspective

This story was produced with guidance from DannyKresnyakof Journalists for Human Rights,as part ofJHRsNorthern Ontario Initiative. Part of this story was published byWawatayNews and has been republished with permission.Richard Spence is the grand-nephew of Chief Teresa Spence, and he recently began working at the band office inAttawapiskat, Ont.

Up north,winter is more than a season. Its a full-time occupation.

The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is kick a leg out from under the blanket to see if the electric furnace in my house is still on.If it isnt,the temperature drop is immediately evident and I have to act fast.

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Next I check on my pregnant girlfriend and our three children.Our house has major draft issues, so once I know my family is secure,we bunch blankets, bedsheets and extra clothing into the window frames and other problem areas to seal the cold air out.

Then I need to track down wood, propane or any other temporary fuel source not requiring a plug-in. Usually,if the power is out,it means we have recently endured a storm and I will have to step outdoors and bear witness to its wrath.

I put on two pairs of heavy socks and thermal underwear with my jeans overtop. Then I step into my front porch,where I layer T-shirts under hooded sweatshirts, zip my jacket and put my hood up.

During this process, I feel something like Chris Hadfield in the pre-spacewalk decompression chamber.Like the astronaut departing into frigid space,I can never be totally sure what waits outside the door.

A recent string of disruptions after an earlier outage lefthouses, hospitals and schools in the James Bay territory in darkness in some cases, for days.

During this period, the emergency shelter on Attawapiskats eastern edge was evacuated after candles being used as the sole available heat source ignited curtains in one of the rooms.

Now the people are gone,but the trailers remain. And in the following story,I will examine how it got this way.

Roots of Attawapiskat's housing crisis

Monique Sutherlands first day as Attawapiskats housing manager was in June2008. She says she received no special training, the files were scattered andshe had no staff.

Not long after she started,the community was forced to declare a housing crisis after a catastrophic sewage backup left many homeless.

Sutherland has persevered in the post longer than her predecessors andhas established a more efficient record-keeping system. Sheoversees a staff of tradespeople,but they still cannot meet demands.

She says the 2009 sewerbackup was the tipping point, but the roots of the housing crisis are deeper than that,and at current rates it will be years until needs are met.

We keep onit, but it could 10 or 15 years," she says.

Attawapiskat had to evacuate again in 2013 after spring floods damaged many homes, including the temporary residences of nurses and teachers working in the community.

An anonymous source at the hospital says the lack of housing has contributed to a critical shortage of permanent nurses and emergency relief staff who come to the community on short-term contracts. Staff have been forced to sleep on the ward,in beds meant to be occupied by the patients they care for.

Limited space

Band members struck by the shortage have options,but wait lists are long and space is limited.

A lot of people end up having to go to relatives' houses,which are already overcrowded, Sutherland says.

Unfortunately, temporary has a way of becoming permanent.Wayne Turner,Attawapiskat executive director

If they cant,they go to the homeless shelter,but its full so they have to put up tent frames.

Sutherlandalso has advice for off-reserve band members with thoughts about returning home: Stay where you are. Youre welcome to visit, but as it sits,we have no houses available."

Before the fire last month, Denise Okimawwasa resident of the emergency shelter trailer complex on the eastern edge of Attawapiskat First Nation.Okimaw saysshe paidalmost $500a month to share a single room with her teenage son and hadlived there for the last four years.

Before the room in the shelter, Okimaw spent nights in Attawapiskat community hotels, the healing lodge outside of town,and emergency housing in Cochrane, Ont.

Her former home near the riveris a four-bedroom white house that now has a padlock on the front door. The house has not been renovated since the sewage backup in 2009.Now she uses itfor storage while she stays at the homeless shelter,wondering whats being done to fix it.

Solutions androadblocks

Sutherland saysthe housing budget is depleted because some band members in new houses have refused to pay their rent,and many old houses are in need of extensive and expensive repairs.

Some of the houses are about to collapse. They need to be fixed but we dont have money to buy supplies, she says.

A new program called RRAP(Rehabilitation Repairs Application Program) has provided some support for houses in need of renovation, but the funding is scheduled to expire at the end of October.

Sutherland saysAttawapiskats funding application to build new houses through the CMHCwas denied when Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (AANDC) refused to guarantee a loan due to accounting inadequacies and a budget deficit.

We used to build 10, maybe 15 houses some years. Now we arent able to meet the needs," she says.

Wayne Turner,Attawapiskats executive director,says housing the displaced is a major drain on band funds.

We receive no additional funds for transitional housing," he says. "The money all comes from the bands discretionary fund.Unfortunately,temporary has a way of becoming permanent.

He lives on the second floor of the Tony Fireman Healing Lodge,outside of town.The former addictionstreatmentcentrehas been appropriated as emergency housing and the main level is full of elders, children and families with no other place to stay.

'We cant tax people, there are many unemployed. If we want to do any project, we have to beg the federal government,and that dependency doesnt solve the problem.'-Chief Teresa Spence

Turner saysthe First Nation's chief and council have developed a multiyear housing strategy,funded by $2.2 million for new home buildingprovided by the federal government.

The band has already started building. These are the new houses on the west side of town, he says.The houses are assessed a market value rent and the First Nation backs the mortgage.

Turner explainsthat people who live in these houses can eventually own the building if they maintain it, but provisions ofthe Indian Act prevent use the homes to establish equity.

This is one of the biggest issues facing residents, he says.

What other part of the country can you not leverage what you own into advantages for yourself?

The chief's house

Chief Teresa Spence lives in a yellow bungalow that was once a police station,down a back alley near the hospital. Her front door opens to a chain-link and black canvas fence at the perimeter of a contamination remediation site.

On her walk to work, she takes ahard-packed grit road frequented by heavy-duty equipment carrying contaminated soil to containment tanks on the outskirts of the First Nation.

She then takes another left at the only sidewalk in Attawapiskat, four one-metre square slabs of concrete connecting the steel grate steps of the mural-emblazoned band office to the wooden entry of a graffiti-adorned decommissioned post office.

Spence says present legislation excludes First Nations people from participation in the national economy.

Ive heard from a few people their mortgage was denied because they live on reserve. It shouldnt be that way," she says.

'If you have a good job and have shown yourself responsible,you should be able to have your dream house built.

Spence saysthe housing budget is a major drain on the band budget,and the band lacks revenue for new projects.

We cant tax people, there are many unemployed. If we want to do any project,we have to beg the federal government, and that dependency doesnt solve the problem," she says.

Paul Kataquapit is part of a four-person carpentry crew building a house next to his brothers diner in a central section of town.He spent his own money to have building materials freighted to Attawapiskat on the barge because he wastired of waiting for the band to approve the lot and Indian Affairs [AANDC] to pay for the building.

The frame has gone up quickly,but Kataquapit sayshe worries about whether the supplies he needs for the roof will make it before the snow sets in.

While he waits to hear from government,his niece and her family had to live in a crowded house,and it was clear to him, he says, thatno one is going to do this for us. We needed to take action ourselves.