Innovative Housing For Indigenous Youth, Elders Clears Hurdles in Kamloops

The housing crisis hit Kamloops hard in its efforts to end homelessness for youth leaving government care when they turn 19.

But an innovative project to provide shared housing for elders and young people who have been in the child welfare system promises to offer new options for youth aging out of care.

A Way Home, a coalition working to end youth homelessness in Kamloops, had secured affordable rental units for 20 youth when The Tyee reported on the effort in 2017. Rising rents have cut the number to 14 since then.

But there is good news on the horizon. Kikékyelc: A Place of Belonging, a 31-unit housing project for elders and youth from care, finally has the green light to begin construction in north Kamloops.

Kikékyelc is a landmark in breaking down silos between service providers and government ministries, said Natika Bock, youth housing manager for Lii Michif Otipemisiwak Family and Community Services, a Métis child and family services organization. It’s also the first housing project in B.C. run by a child welfare agency.

“Other municipalities are watching this project, now, too, because it’s such a big crisis in terms of youth aging out of care,” she said.

The Tyee first reported on the project last April after it received $3.9 million in provincial funding. It was being fast tracked through Kamloop’s new Affordable Housing Developers’ Package.

But the project hit a snag when neighbours opposed to the project presented a petition with more than 125 signatures. The city and project developers BC Housing and the Aboriginal Housing Management Association advised Lii Michif Otipemisiwak to do more public outreach, and the rezoning hearing for the site at 975 Singh St. was delayed until March 27.

But the result was a unanimous vote in favour of rezoning the land, which Lii Michif is leasing from the city for $1 a year for 60 years.

A week later the province announced an additional $800,000 in capital funding for the project. There is also the possibility of additional funding from the federal government and federal and provincial Métis organizations. Construction is expected to start by early fall, with doors opening in summer 2019.

Aging out and youth homelessness

Every year about 700 young people “age out” of the provincial child welfare system. Although financial supports are available from the Ministry of Children and Family Development for youth going to school, working or taking life skills training, they have to know the programs exist and apply for them. Otherwise they are entirely cut off from funds, housing and most supports on their 19th birthdays.

Sixty-three per cent of youth in care in B.C. are First Nations, Métis or Inuit, despite making up around 10 per cent of youth in the province. Of the 129 youth experiencing homelessness during Kamloops’ inaugural youth homelessness count in October 2016, more than half also identified as Indigenous; half had spent some time in government care; and a quarter had aged out of care on their 19th birthday.

For many, aging out meant homelessness. “Why should a 19-year-old go to the streets because they aged out of care? That’s sociopathic,” said Bock.

The B.C. government has extended eligibility for the Agreements with Young Adults support until a youth’s 27th birthday and increased the maximum monthly payments by $250 to $1,250 for youth who are in school, pursuing work or attending a lifeskills program.

But they can only receive those supports for 48 months. And in a province where the average rent for a bachelor apartment is almost $1,000 and vacancy rates hover around one per cent, finding affordable housing is difficult for most youth from care whether they have government supports or not.

That’s where Kikékyelc: A Place of Belonging comes in. The name combines the Secwepemc word Kikékyelc, which means to cover youth protectively, in honour of their location on Tk'emlúps te Secwepemc people’s land, and A Place of Belonging, the name of the agency’s rental housing pilot program where three Indigenous youth from care currently live together.

Kikékyelc is not a low-barrier housing program for high-risk youth, although that’s needed too in Kamloops.

Instead it’s a place for young adults who are going to school, working or pursuing options towards self-reliance to be wrapped in culture and community, Bock said.

The building includes a common area that will look like a kekuli, a Secwepemc pit house, as well as a common kitchen for elders and youth to cook together in addition to the kitchens in each unit. The building exterior will feature the four colours from the First Nations’ medicine wheel, and interior design will be distinctly Indigenous and localized to reflect the cultures of the people who live there, Bock said.

While open to people between 16 and 26, Bock believes most youth will be 19 to 21 and stay about a year before moving on. Elders may stay indefinitely. Although not confirmed, the rents are projected to range from $600 for a studio to $750 for a one-bedroom unit.

Kikékyelc will have 24/7 supports for youth, including a live-in building manager, security and, possibly, on-site support workers. No alcohol or drugs will be allowed in the building, there will be a nightly curfew, every tenant will be screened by Lii Michif Otipemisiwak and BC Housing, and every person 18 and over will go through a criminal record check.

For youth who are often estranged from birth families because of time in care, living with elders will help ground them culturally and emotionally, Bock said — support many kids living with parents receive when they’re learning to be adults.

Housing and support can make the difference between whether these young people succeed or become “high risk” due to substance misuse, homelessness and mental health issues, she said.

Katherine McParland, United Way Kamloops’ youth homelessness manager and co-chair of the city’s A Way Home Committee to End Youth Homelessness, says Kikékyelc is a great example of the way to do housing first specifically for young people by wrapping supports around them where they live.

“They’ll provide that much-needed cultural connection and support for Indigenous youth, which helps them discover who they are,” McParland said, “which is a key developmental path to becoming an adult, developing your identity. I also see it preventing youth homelessness before they age out.”

But despite support for the project from the city, Kamloops United Church, the Canadian Mental Health Association, BC Housing and Aboriginal Housing Management Association, not every Kamloops resident sees the need for Kikékyelc.

The property was zoned for Indigenous housing in 2011, but some residents who showed up to the public hearing wanted a dog park on the site. Others were concerned the increased number of units — the rezoning would allow 31 units instead of 15 townhouses — would mean parking problems.

The 100 speakers who came to the two-hour public hearing showed the misunderstandings about youth in care, said Bock.

“People immediately associate youth in care with derelicts, criminals — it’s heartbreaking,” she said. There was also an element of “very cloaked racism” in some of the objections raised to the Indigenous housing project, she said.

Nevertheless, Bock is excited the project has been approved and has both city and provincial government support. She hopes Lii Michif Otipemisiwak’s success will encourage other child welfare agencies — Indigenous and not — to get into the housing business.

“It broke us out of a silo: it put us into the affordable housing continuum in Kamloops, that was a huge shift for us,” said Bock. But child welfare agencies can’t expect to do this work off the side of their desks, she added, they need a full-time housing manager, like Bock, to ensure it’s done right.

Lii Michif Otipemisiwak acknowledges the Kikékyelc: A Place of Belonging, is a Band-Aid solution to the much larger issues of a lack of supports for youth leaving care and a province-wide housing crisis. A wound they’re hoping will be healed long before these youth become elders themselves.