Culturally supportive housing rooted in land-based harm reduction – FNHA
May 16, 2024
That’s what Fran Hunt-Jinnouchie said she heard again and again when speaking with Indigenous people living unhoused in Victoria in 2016. The Executive Director of the Aboriginal Coalition to End Homelessness Society (ACEH) had been asked by the city to assist with a cultural approach to end homelessness in the downtown core. She shared that story with hundreds of attendees at the First Nations Health & Wellness Summit held in Vancouver May 7 – 9.
She told the crowd of First Nations community and health leaders the story of 74 “priority people” who were identified by the city as being the most challenging to house, 20 of whom self-identified as Indigenous. Although Indigenous people represent just four per cent of the population in Victoria, they make up 31 per cent of chronic shelter users in the city.
The original cohort of 20 Indigenous people presented complex mental health and social challenges.
