National Day for Truth and Reconciliation - What NDTR Means to ECOHH

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Acknowledgement: ECOHH recognizes that although we have Indigenous representation on our Board of Directors and in our membership, we are not an Indigenous organization. Due to our 40-year history in Edmonton, we are part of the colonial superstructure. We do not pretend to speak for, or on behalf of, members of the Indigenous community, and also recognize that the situation of Indigenous people in Canada has been appropriated by many organizations and governments to further their own mandates. We respectfully ask for forgiveness if anything in this post crosses the line between acknowledgement, and appropriation.

What the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation means to ECOHH

The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is a time for Canadians to reflect on the tragedies of the residential school system and other aspects of settler colonialism and consider how we will progress as a nation to ensure injustices like this never happen again. Sadly, these injustices continue to rage throughout Canada.

According to the 2019 National Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls and the 2026 Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal, Canada is actively committing genocide against Indigenous Peoples to this day.

One particularly insidious element: most of us witness genocide on a daily basis without even recognizing it, let alone taking action against it.

As we will explain, in Edmonton and throughout Canada,

HOMELESSNESS IS INDIGENOUS GENOCIDE and reconciliation requires ending homelessness.

Sources: CBC 2019, 2026

First, it is important to define “homelessness.” Most people think of homelessness as not having a fixed address. By this definition, not every homeless person is Indigenous, and not all Indigenous people are homeless.

However, roughly half of people experiencing homelessness in Edmonton identify as Indigenous despite representing only 6% of the population. In other words, Indigenous people experience more total homelessness in Edmonton than any other racial group—not to mention the extremely skewed homelessness statistics per capita.

This is not a coincidence—it is the result of ongoing systemic oppression under settler colonial rule.

Sources: Homeward Trust 2026, Alberta Regional Dashboard

Homelessness in Canada cannot be understood outside the context of settler colonialism. Indeed, “homelessness” is also a condition imposed onto people who are ethnically cleansed from their ancestral lands.

According to Moose Cree First Nation scholar Dr. Emily Faries:

“Traditionally, in the pre-contact era before the influence of Europeans, no Cree person was ever homeless. All members of the community had a home …everyone was cared for and included…everything was shared. But because of what has happened with colonization, we, as a race of people, have become homeless. This is mainly because our traditional homelands, which are now known as Canada, have all been taken away from us. We don’t even have legal access to any of our traditional homelands. So, a race of people, on a macro level, has been left homeless.”

Sources: Kauppi et al 2014

Regardless of how we define homelessness, it is clear that Indigenous people are primarily affected. What is not clear to many people are the methods through which Indigenous people are made—or kept—homeless today.

Two of the most blatant methods of imposing homelessness onto Indigenous communities are under-funding critical resources like housing and over-policing.

These methods are often disguised by politicians as “fiscal responsibility” and “law and order” to appear reasonable. However, when these policies enact asymmetric harm against Indigenous people, they are tools of genocide.

Method #1: Under-funding

The severe lack of government funding for reserves is responsible for a housing shortage of over 150,000 homes alongside deteriorating living conditions like chronic mold outbreaks and boil water advisories.

The Canadian government constantly neglects these crises, forcing First Nations people to migrate into urban centres—fracturing communities and driving urban homelessness.

The Assembly of First Nations estimated in 2023 that over $300 billion were needed to bring First Nations living standards up to par with the rest of Canada by 2030.

In Alberta, the provincial government has embarked on a years-long effort to overhaul and ultimately defund social safety nets like supportive housing while denying the sovereignty of First Nations.

The result: emergency levels of resource insecurity and homelessness concentrated in Indigenous communities.

Sources: Assembly of First Nations 2024, Policy Options 2019, Homeless Hub, Treaty 8 Sovereign Nations 2026, Edmonton Coalition on Housing and Homelessness 2026

Method #2: Over-policing

In Canada, Indigenous people make up 33% of prison inmates but only 5% of the population. The Canadian government recognizes this racialized criminalization as “indisputably linked to colonialism, displacement, socioeconomic marginalization, intergenerational trauma and systemic discrimination.”

This criminalization extends into Indigenous households. Indigenous scholars like Dr. Pamela Palmeter argue that “foster care has become the new residential school.” She explains:

“Today, there are more Indigenous children forcibly removed from their parents and placed into foster care than at the height of the residential school era.”

While less than 10% of Canadian children are Indigenous, about 50% of children in foster care are Indigenous. This figure has increased and become even more disproportionate in recent decades. Both residential schools and foster care have been described as “pipelines to prison” for Indigenous youths.

Sources: Government of Canada 2026, 2024, 2021, CBC 2018

There is a well-documented revolving door between prisons and homelessness which entraps thousands of Indigenous people, often ending in premature death.

In Edmonton, prisoners are released by provincial corrections officers directly onto the streets, where many end up homeless. Edmonton hosts the highest concentration of former inmates of any major city in Canada.

Homelessness is harshly criminalized through policies like encampment sweeps, transit bans, and drug use restrictions, resulting in millions of dollars in fines, thousands of confrontations with enforcement officers, and untold arrests each year. Prisoners become homeless, and the homeless become prisoners.

Banishing people from encampments and transit stops during Edmonton’s harsh winters contributes to hundreds of annual deaths and is responsible for Edmonton’s reputation as the “frostbite capital of the world.”

Sources: American Journal of Public Health 2005, CityNews 2026, Edmonton Journal 2018, 2025, CBC 2025, 2026, 2026, ECOHH 2026

What’s even more backwards about Edmonton’s encampment sweep policy is that Indigenous Peoples have lived in temporary encampments since time immemorial.

Many people on the streets are traditional knowledge-holders and practice land based living practices in urban settings.

In this context, sweeping encampments is yet another example of how governments criminalize and suppress Indigenous culture.

This constant destabilization by officers:

prohibits encampments from developing the physical and social infrastructure needed to be considered “homes”
prevents homeless and Indigenous people from living with dignity
makes escaping homelessness even more difficult, contradicting paternalistic narratives from police and city officials

Sources: Alberta Native News 2024, Edmonton Journal 2026, 2024

Homelessness is extremely deadly.

The average life expectancy of a houseless person in Canada is only 39 years old.

The pervasiveness of poverty and homelessness in Indigenous communities has a clear affect on health outcomes. In Alberta, the life expectancy of First Nations Peoples is 19 years lower than other residents.

This is not an accident—it is a settler colonial system working exactly as designed. Ultimately, the imposition of homelessness onto Indigenous Peoples by all levels of government is a form of Indigenous genocide.

Sources: Charity Intelligence 2009, CTV News 2025

Ending homelessness and achieving reconciliation are deeply intertwined.

Currently, only 15 of 94 Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action have been verified as complete. Of these, little progress has been made on the Legacy Calls to Action (1–42) which harbour the most potential for material change. Legacy Calls to Action center child welfare, education, language and culture, health and justice, all of which impact and are impacted by housing security.

Instead of addressing the Legacy Calls to Action, governments tend to focus on symbolic gestures. Indigenous genocide is not symbolic—it is a material problem that requires material solutions like adequate housing. ECOHH believes that housing is a human right that must be upheld by all levels of government, as it was upheld prior to colonization. Restoring the human right to housing would significantly reduce ongoing injustices and is an essential step towards reconciliation.

Sources: Indigenous Watchdog

Genuine reconciliation cannot recreate paternalistic, colonial dynamics in which Indigenous people are spoken for and treated as passive victims to be rescued. Indigenous people must be accepted as stewards of their own destiny—and of Canada’s future as a whole. Indigenous people, knowledge and culture must be at the forefront of this movement.

Indigenous-led grassroots organizations like the Red Road Healing Society, NiGiNan Housing Ventures, Water Warriors and many more do incredibly impactful work to address housing insecurity and survival in Edmonton. Ultimately, some members of ECOHH believe that reconciliation will require a mass social movement that:

Empowers Indigenous leadership and resistance
Upholds the sovereignty of First Nations
Unsettles the settler colonial power structures on which Canada is built.

Next time you see a community member experiencing homelessness, remember the systems impacting them. Have empathy for your houseless neighbours, lend a hand to those who ask for help, and, if you want to take action, join an organization fighting for housing justice.

This National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, understand that progress towards reconciliation requires not only individual education, reflection, and healing, but collective organizing and a mass struggle to transform the nature of Canadian society.

ECOHH is deeply committed to truth and reconciliation through the following actions:

holding all levels of government accountable for housing injustice
fighting for housing to be a guaranteed human right by advocating evidence-based policy solutions, raising public awareness around housing issues, and building collective power outside of the political establishment
centering the voices and perspectives of Indigenous peoples and people with lived experience of homelessness in our work.