Leveraging culturally-relevant urban social housing to address Indigenous youth homelessness and transitions out of government care

Abstract

Indigenous children and youth are overrepresented in settler-colonial child protection systems globally. They experience higher rates of homelessness and housing precarity when leaving care and searching for family and a place to call home. Missing from Canadian policy and research discussions is the role social housing can play to address these realities by providing a social safety net for permanent low-barrier housing. In this article, we highlight a community-based Solutions Lab that analyzed discursive policy constructions of ‘youth transition’ and explored the implications of austerity-driven social housing reform in a mid-sized metropolitan Canadian city. We illustrate potential challenges and opportunities for leveraging social housing by state governments and private markets which mediate housing precarity, belonging, and cultural conceptions of home.

Keywords:

• Canada,
• child welfare policy,
• healthy development,
• social assistance