Housing

Homelessness 

• Despite making up only 5% of the population, 35% of homeless individuals identified as Indigenous.    
• Indigenous peoples are not only overrepresented among the homeless population but are more likely to experience unsheltered and hidden homelessness. Indigenous people are often undercounted in official data. Some older estimates place the rate of Indigenous homelessness in urban areas as high as 20 – 50% or even 11 – 96%.

Homes in Need of Major Repairs 

• In 2021, Indigenous people were nearly three times as likely to live in homes requiring major repairs, 16.4% compared to just 5.7% of the non-Indigenous population.

Crowded Housing

• More than one in six Indigenous individuals, approximately 309,000 people, lived in overcrowded housing that did not meet the needs of the household size, nearly twice the rate of the non-Indigenous population.

Housing Shortages 

•  An estimated 157,453 homes are needed to address the housing crisis in Indigenous communities.
• To close the housing gap, funding for First Nations housing must be 80% greater than the national average.