Members of Red Deer’s aboriginal community are speaking out against a recent funding allocation to end homelessness.
About 30 members of the Urban Aboriginal Voices Society walked in protest to City Hall from the Red Deer Native Friendship Centre on Monday.
The Red Deer Native Friendship Centre will receive $100,000 to provide indigenous cultural supports to agencies of the $3.44 million Outreach Support Services Initiative grant for July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2019.
The money will be used to provide cultural connections to any homeless person served at other agencies in the city.
The Community Housing Advisory Board reviews the funding applications before making recommendations to council.
The aboriginal community wants council to revisit its March 29 approval.
But the funding issue is only scratching the surface, says Tanya Schur, Red Deer Native Friendship Centre executive director.
Schur said there is a lack of attention and understanding about who is best qualified to serve the aboriginal community and deal with aboriginal issues.
“If 24 per cent of the burden of homelessness is aboriginal then 24 per cent of the funding should go into the Aboriginal community addressing those issues,” said Schur. “Canadian Mental Health was given $1 million to provide supports but the Aboriginal culture supports are only worth $100,000 to the city?”
She said the city does not understand the principles it signed on in the Canadian Coalition of Municipalities against Racism and Discrimination which includes the principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Actions, or what Justice Murray Sinclair recently said in Red Deer. Sinclair was the chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
The city recently approved the provincial flow-through dollars to end homelessness as recommended by the 10-member Community Housing Advisory Board. CHAB is made up of six citizen representatives, two councillors and two aboriginal members.
In 2015, CHAB completed a review of the homelessness support services system in Red Deer. Agencies were consulted in the creation of the new system and were given opportunities to provide input including a separate one with the aboriginal community.
In the new framework there is a strong focus on collaboration of agencies.
Coun. Ken Johnston, who sits on the advisory board, said he has full confidence that the framework based on research and best practices will end homelessness in Red Deer by 2018.
“As a committee member I was impressed with the work already being done in the aboriginal community by other agencies and the fact that they were using aboriginal workers to reach out to that particular population,” said Johnston.
He said the expectation is that agencies will work together to find the best fit for clients.
“Work in the aboriginal community is core to the success here,” said Johnston. “I am very confident if all our agencies focus on the issue of ending homelessness and providing supports for people who have been on the streets this long, we are going to be successful. (With a) collaborative approach and cultural funding, I think we’re going to be successful.”
But Schur said the research tells them that having aboriginal workers in a non-cultural faith space is not effective.
She said these decisions show the city doesn’t believe the aboriginal community is equipped to solve the aboriginal issues when the research says that is clearly not true, which is why this is not a funding issue.
“Yeah it is an issue for the funding for the Friendship Centre but for the Urban Aboriginal Voices this is a fundamental discrimination issue,” she said.
She said this is why the Asooahum Centre is very important to the community because it will provide cultural safe housing and culturally appropriate support services.
By July 1 the agency will not be providing direct support to housing people in Red Deer. It will no longer accept new participants in its Aboriginal New Beginnings Housing Program.
Elder Lynn Jonasson said he is extremely disappointed with the decision especially in light of the TRC recommendations and United Nations.
“It’s very upsetting because aboriginal people have been fighting for their rights for hundreds of years,” said Jonasson. “Their rights have been shut down and we are still fighting issues from such a long time ago.”
Jonasson said the provincial funding is not enough to support all agencies in the community. As well, he said there needs to be a change in the way the money is distributed.
crhyno@www.reddeeradvocate.com