"They aren't homeless they have homes": unpacking indigenous homelessness and housing (in)security experiences in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador

Rahal, Sarah-Mae (2024) "They aren't homeless they have homes": unpacking indigenous homelessness and housing (in)security experiences in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

Homelessness in northern Canada intersects with a multitude of issues. This includes but is not limited to: chronic northern housing need, social determinants of health, colonialism, intergenerational trauma, and socio-economic change. These issues are integral when examining how geographies of homelessness are produced, reproduced, and ultimately experienced in northern Canada. The issues of homelessness and housing insecurity reveal themselves to be even more complex and nuanced than their individual parts. Importantly, homelessness and housing insecurity in northern Canada are experienced disproportionately by Indigenous peoples. Given this important reality, settler-colonial histories and living legacies must be considered to fully understand the Indigenous homeless and/or housing insecure lived experiences. By using qualitative data and insights from semi-structured interviews with: frontline workers at an emergency shelter, transitional and housing programs, government staff working in social services, health, child welfare, law and corrections, policy makers who develop housing and homelessness policies and individuals with lived experience of homelessness, this research seeks to identify and explore the factors that have led to increased visible Indigenous homelessness in the community of Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador. Moreover, this case study contributes to our understanding of the broader experiences of homelessness and housing insecurity in northern Canada, as the community of Happy Valley-Goose Bay is a key economic, administrative, service and transportation hub, and a significant place to the Labrador region which shares similar dynamics vis-à-vis housing and homelessness with other northern regional centres. The knowledge shared and discussed in this thesis demonstrates the significance of mobility and movement for people who are experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity in Labrador. Mobility and movement is a large theme is this research; it is the movement of people between rural/remote communities across Labrador to Happy Valley-Goose Bay. This movement across Labrador is directly related to uneven development and inequities that exist in both the region and across northern Canada more broadly. Additionally, what critical gaps in both housing, supports, and services that exacerbate individuals’ vulnerabilities when experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity in the community of Happy Valley- Goose Bay is examined. This thesis therefore lastly seeks to more fully describe the ways in which Indigenous homelessness is experienced in Happy Valley-Goose Bay by situating all these experiences within the context of settler-colonialism and the colonial continuities that continue to displace Indigenous peoples on their homelands. The experiences discussed in this thesis inform the reality of homelessness in the community, as well as the colonial systems and structures that led to a growing Indigenous homeless population in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. The growing Indigenous homelessness population in Happy Valley-Goose Bay contributes to the massive overrepresentation of Indigenous peoples in homeless populations across Canada, given the colonial context and the ongoing colonial project; these structure and systems have succeeded in their effort to disenfranchise and displace Indigenous people. I conclude this thesis by offering brief recommendations that point at better collaboration to address gaps, service, supports and housing gaps in the community.

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