Recommendations for safe and affordable housing for Indigenous women in the DTES

Recommendation 90: Comprehensive federal, provincial, and municipal Indigenous Housing policy framework to specifically address Indigenous homelessness.

Recommendations to keep Indigenous families together in the DTES

Recommendation 113: We applaud the work of Dr. Cindy Blackstock and the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society and call on the federal government to comply with the legally-binding orders of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to:

1. Immediately and fully apply Jordan’s principle to all First Nations children living on and off reserve.
2. Apply Jordan’s principle based on the need of the child and not limited to the normative standard of care.
3. Ensure that administrative delays do not delay service provision and respond to most cases within 48 hours.

Recommendations to keep Indigenous families together in the DTES

Recommendation 114: Implement the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Call to Actions on Child Welfare, recommendations in Indigenous Resilience, Connectedness and Reunification – From Root Causes to Root Solutions by Special Advisor Grand Chief Ed John, and recommendations in Calling Forth Our Future: Options for the Exercise of Indigenous Peoples’ Authority in Child Welfare by the Union of BC Indian Chiefs.

Recommendations to keep Indigenous families together in the DTES

End child apprehensions

Recommendation 115: End the apprehension of Indigenous children due to poverty or Eurocentric ideas of neglect that stem from a legacy of colonization. Poverty must not be conflated with neglect or mistreatment, and removing children from their families exacerbates cycles of trauma and poverty.

Recommendations to keep Indigenous families together in the DTES

End child apprehensions

Recommendation 116: Immediately disallow apprehensions of Indigenous babies at birth and while they are still breastfeeding.

Recommendations to keep Indigenous families together in the DTES

End child apprehensions

Recommendation 117: Prohibit the placement of Indigenous children into non-Indigenous foster and adoptive families, and regularly report on how many Indigenous children are in government care and how many are being placed in non-Indigenous homes.

Recommendations to end criminalization of Indigenous women in the DTES

Recommendation 133: All levels of government must recognize the inherent and constitutionally protected right of Indigenous people to establish and control Indigenous justice systems. All levels of government must also fund the establishment of Indigenous law institutes to support the restoration and advancement of Indigenous legal systems.

Recommendations to end criminalization of Indigenous women in the DTES

Policing

Recommendation 143: All police forces should implement Sex Work Enforcement Guidelines similar to those in Vancouver that support the safety of sex workers in police interactions.

Recommendations to end criminalization of Indigenous women in the DTES

Access to justice

Recommendation 166: Implement existing recommendations of the Aboriginal Justice Implementation Commission.

Recommendations to end criminalization of Indigenous women in the DTES

Correctional facilities

Recommendation 168: Full decarceration of Indigenous women in the federal and provincial corrections system. No Indigenous woman should ever be sentenced into a colonial system.