Join us for an inspiring conversation on Indigenous homelessness prevention through a gender-based lens!

To commemorate Women’s History Month: October’s Prevention Matters! panel highlighted Alternative Builds, a culturally-based program led by Elder Marie McGregor Pitawanakwat. This program is empowering Indigenous women, girls, Two-Spirit and gender-diverse peoples to design and build housing on their terms.

Our panelists shared powerful real-life stories about how this project is helping individuals “find home” through cultural reconnection, as well as the design and construction of housing that is grounded in Indigenous ways of Knowing, Being and Doing.

(In a hurry? Check out our RECAP BLOG for a summary!)

Native Land is an online resource that maps out Indigenous territories, treaties, and languages. Please take a moment to check it out HERE and learn something new about where you currently reside.

For more information about the United Way funding opportunity, please visit their website HERE.

Learn more about our panelists below!

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HOST

KIM KAKAKAWAY is a Cree and Saulteaux First Nations woman from Red Pheasant Cree Nation. She has worked with and for Indigenous communities across North America and has been an advocate for social justice and change. Kim has over 15 years of experience working with vulnerable youth and young adults and works towards the inclusion of Indigenous values and practices within oppressive systems. Kim understands the complexities of working frontlines within the homeless sector and continues to provide supports, coaching and education from her experiences and learnings.

She is educated in family counselling and is currently offering consultation work to A Way Home Canada to conduct trainings, provide program supports and bring in an Indigenous lens to the work within. She is passionate about empowering those around her, and is always up for a good laugh and some good humor!

PANELISTS

MARIE MCGREGOR PITAWANAKWAT is the chair of the National Indigenous Women’s Housing Network & Co-Chair of the Women’s National Housing and Homelessness Network. Marie is an Anishinaabe kwe, based at Daawganing, on Manitoulin Island, Northeastern Ontario, Canada. Marie developed a business called Szhibeegen Training Services, which provided training and development to First Nation communities and NGOs, primarily in Northwestern Ontario, focussed on community and business development. Her business won an award from the Northern Ontario Business Awards.

In 2015, shortly after returning to her home community at Whitefish River First Nation, she was evicted from the original family home and became homeless. Her belief was and is that Indigenous people already own the land, so there was and is no need to “purchase” land that one’s people already own. She created a tiny home, situated in the woods on the Whitefish River reserve on unused land, where she lived off-grid for three years.

In 2018, the Whitefish River reserve evicted her and she became homeless again. In 2019, Marie was accepted as a member of Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory.

TRINITY FLETCHER serves as the Lead of Research and Community Engagement at the National Indigenous Women’s Housing Network. She is an Anishinaabe kwe from Caldwell First Nation and supports housing and homelessness research with Keepers of the Circle. Trinity holds a Master’s in Criminology from Wilfrid Laurier University and has valuable experience with community-based, participatory research and Indigenous methodologies. Trinity’s research focuses on developing culturally appropriate housing solutions, emphasizing traditional building materials.

ARLENE HACHE is a co-Chair of the Women’s National Housing and Homelessness Network. Arlene is a grassroots woman who has experienced homelessness and traumatic impacts of childhood violence. She has an MA in Leadership from Royal Roads University and currently sits as a Co-Chair of the Women’s National Housing and Homelessness Network.

Arlene founded, and over two decades, led an urban-based family resource centre that provided support to marginalized women and their families, the majority of which were Indigenous. She is well-known across Canada’s Arctic as an advocate for social change and in recognition of her work was awarded the Order of Canada in 2009 and then the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012. Of equal importance, Arlene was honoured with a Star Blanket ceremony guided by Wisdom Keepers and hosted by Keepers of the Circle, an Indigenous Hub in Northeastern Ontario. Arlene is a published author and has participated on several research teams that gives voice to people with lived experience. She has also served on territorial, national and international boards that address gender equality.

COLLEEN CARPENTER is a Placement Coordinator at Keepers of the Circle. Colleen is a Omushkego woman, a single mother to her one daughter, an off-reserve member of Attawapiskat First Nation of Treaty 9 territory. She currently resides in the Roberston Huron Treaty territory in Temiskaming Shores, ON. Colleen has lived experience of homelessness and housing insecurity from childhood, living with her parents and siblings in a prospectors tent living off the land, to a camping tent from being evicted, an unused cabin on the outskirts in town to staying with family all over the north.

Colleen is a storyteller of her ancestral strengths and survival of assimilationist policies, discrimination and ongoing racism. She has come a very long way to be where is today. Colleen has been with Keepers of the Circle for nearly 5 years, an urban Indigenous Hub operated by the Temiskaming Native Womens Support Group. She is currently a team lead for the green construction training program under Keepers of the Circle.

Colleen was instrumental in implementing an innovative housing project which gave her the opportunity to build her own off-grid home alongside with 5 incredible Indigenous women who were part of her project. Colleen is a strong advocate for affordable housing, Indigenous women’s rights and ecologically sustainable ways of living and being. She hopes to accomplish more and help many others out there.