Housing advocates insist on funding

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Through four days of meetings, representatives of Native housing corporations worked out a plan to try and get funding for off-reserve housing reinstated.

Pat Apikan, chair of the National Aboriginal Housing Committee, told Windspeaker that nothing was going to stop the group from getting the federal government to stop the funding cuts.

In the last federal budget; funding for off-reserve housing was set to be eliminated on Jan. 1, 1994.

The upbeat things about these meetings is that these groups are not going to take no for an answer, Apikan said.

"We're going to win back our housing committee."

The committee represents 130 community housing corporations from all parts of Canada except new Brunswick. Apikan said this is a grass roots organization with a message that "we provide more than just housing to people who need it."

In many communities the local housing corporation is the life blood of the community, hiring construction workers and maintenance people and purchasing supplies and services from the community.

The meeting was part of a gathering of Aboriginal Peoples held at Lebreton Flats in Ottawa from June 10-13.

More than 40,000 Native families are waiting for adequate housing across Canada. This figure represents close to 100,000 people. In Ottawa alone there are 1,300 people waiting for housing assistance.

Apikan said the committee took an active part in lobbying the delegates and leadership contestants at the Progressive Conservative Leadership Convention held in Ottawa on the same weekend. Prime Minister Designate Kim Campbell told representatives of the committee that she will meet with them in coming days. Apikan said Campbell has told the committee that she feels cutting the funding was wrong.

The committee has had meetings with both the New Democrats and the federal Liberals. The NDP sent former Ottawa mayor Marion Dewar to meet with the committee at Lebreton Flats while the Liberals sent Elijah Harper.

The committee has also received a commitment from Jean Chretien for a meeting.

Epikan said the committee's plan is to stress the need for housing, to explain how the housing corporations benefit the communities they are in and that this is a grass roots organization representing a lot of voters.

He said they are also looking at legal avenues of attach if the political route fails.

After the committee meets with federal political leaders its next plan is to lobby ministers of Aboriginal affairs at their summit meeting, planned for July in Inuvik, NWT.