GRASSY NARROWS – Chief Rudy Turtle disclosed on YouTube recently that his First Nation northeast of Kenora has secured a federal commitment for scores of new housing units in the next few years.
A meeting last month with Indigenous Services Canada produced a $24-million pledge to fund 50 new modular homes and a 20-unit apartment complex in the Anishinabe community, Turtle said.
The department also committed to funding construction of 10 houses a year for three years, for another 30 homes, he said.
A government spokesperson clarified in an email to Newswatch that the 100-dwelling commitment is “a commitment in principle that was made to the Chief in a letter during an in-person meeting on September 5 in ISC offices in Toronto.”
Final approval hasn’t been made yet, the email said.
In a separate statement, Indigenous Services spokesperson Eric Head said the 50 new modular homes and the 20 apartments "will be supported as special initiatives" of the department's First Nations On-Reserve Housing Program.
Grassy Narrows is also "encouraged to apply to an upcoming Expression of Interest for the Immediate Needs Housing Program" being launched this fall, Head added.
He said Ottawa is committed to working with First Nations "so that all First Nations have access to safe and adequate housing."
Grassy Narrows (Asubpeeschoseewagong) First Nation will start adding new homes this month, Turtle said.
Twenty-five of the new homes planned for the community are replacement homes, he said, “so those will probably happen kind of quickly.”
The new homes that aren’t replacing existing homes will be added to a newly developed area on the south side of Grassy Narrows, he said.
“There are lots there that have been designated and we’ll start putting them there.”
The upcoming new housing is good news for a community known for its struggles with mercury contamination from a pulp mill upstream in Dryden.
