In a year’s time, Regina will have 29 additional rapid housing units built in conjunction with the federal, provincial and municipal governments.

For Erica Beaudin, executive director of the Regina Treaty Status Indian Services (RTSIS), the project is a way for people experiencing homelessness or precarious housing to be empowered to get out of a cycle of dependency.

“It has been almost my daily experience since 2007, where we have people, our people, who walk through our doors that have been through a number of agencies that have not been successful,” she said.

Connecting Indigenous people in need with Indigenous service providers has been, to Beaudin, the best way to provide independence and economic stability.

Beaudin is grateful that RTSIS and Silver Sage Housing Corporation were selected to deliver the program since both organizations are Indigenous-run and operated. In her experience, “between 70 and 75 per cent of the people who would be considered houseless would be Indigenous people or of Indigenous descent,” she added.

Silver Sage Housing Corporation currently has 371 rental units in its control in Saskatchewan. The additional 29 units will focus on people who are hard to house or have faced continuous issues regarding finding and retaining housing.

“When people have been failed by every system, and have not been able to be successful in those CBOs, those programs because they are western in formation, are carried out by non-Indigenous people then they leave on their own, or they’re asked to leave,” said Beaudin.

She said RTSIS sees a number of “outcasts” or people who have not been able to succeed in other programs or through other social service providers.

In July the federal government announced $7.8 million in funding for the City of Regina through the Rapid Housing Initiative (RHI).

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