Recommendations to guarantee economic security for Indigenous women in the DTES
Employment security
Recommendation 77:
Rectify Indigenous women’s exclusion from the economy by:
- Developing equitable and inclusive hiring policy and standards.
- Creating a diversity of low-barrier jobs in the DTES with priority hiring and support for Indigenous women of the community.
- Creating peer-based employment programs including navigation positions throughout the housing, mental health, substance use, and income support systems.
- Ensuring Indigenous women peer workers are paid a living wage, have full benefits, and have the right to unionization.
- Creating jobs that value and compensate skills such as weaving, beading, drum making, food harvesting, and traditional healing, and support the creation of an Indigenous women’s cooperative in the DTES.
- Improving employment supports and workplace accommodations for Indigenous women who are single parents and/or in recovery to ensure that they are not setup to fail in their employment due to systemic barriers.