Homeless percentage of Indigenous low considering abuses

By Lethbridge Herald on December 16, 2022.

Editor:

Dec. 8 headline: City homeless numbers have doubled since 2018. Inside the story was the number of homeless identifying as Indigenous: 327 of 454, which equals 72 per cent.

Dec. 13 Roasts and Toasts: Two submissions that were clearly against the homeless people.

I will add some context before people jump to conclusions.

I was a teacher on the Piikani Reserve for almost seven years, and taught another year at the Tsuu Tina school outside Calgary. The other 18 years I taught in public schools here and in England (which was the worst teaching experience of my career).  I have seen the good and bad of people reflected in the condition of their children when they arrive at school. Two weeks ago I attended the funeral of a Piikani Nation teacher, one of the best teachers I have ever known (out of hundreds). She was firm but compassionate, intelligent and humourous, fluent in her language and traditions (she wrote a children’s story book in Blackfoot).  One of her sons is an RCMP officer, the other son, who was in one of my Grade 6 classes, just received his MBA. After a great teaching career, Sheena Potts was cut down by illness before she could accept a position as a grad student at Harvard.

The most current population figures for the Piikani Nation and Kainai (Blood) Nations, both on and off the reserve is 3,917 Piikani and 12,813 Kainai, for a total of 16,730. Thus the percentage of Indigenous homeless people in Lethbridge is less than two per cent of 16,730. When one considers the terrible abuse from churches and government neglect suffered by these nations since Treaty 7 was signed in 1877, less than two per cent is a surprisingly low number.  

Question: In Alberta, do we have less than two per cent of our non-Indigenous population suffering addictions? AADAC estimates two per cent of gamblers have an addiction problem, and that is not even considering alcohol or drug addictions.

Please remember that First Nations people were stewards of the land of what we now call Alberta up to 200 years ago, before the buffalo were wiped out, before the railways came, before smallpox, before even “Canada” existed. First Nations reserves in Alberta now amount to one per cent of the province. And First Nations people did not invent alcohol, heroin, meth or fentanyl.

Allan Wilson

Lethbridge