Sleeping On The Couch

Recently the Conference Board of Canada released a housing report titled “Sleeping On The Couch”. The report found as many as 25% of houses in some Arctic regions have six or more people living in them - a level of overcrowding that is not seen in southern Canada. In some cases as many as 20 people are living in three bedroom homes and news articles regarding communities struggling with housing and homelessness issues are all to common.

As has been shown many times social and health issues increase significantly when combined with overcrowded housing. Over the last four years the tuberculosis rate among Inuit has doubled to 185 times the rate experienced by Canadian-born non-Aboriginal people. According to the 2009 "Aboriginal children’s health: Leaving no child behind" report “respiratory virus and pneumonia infections are rampant". These are both a direct result of overcrowded housing.

Health costs for Inuit are very high. Without hospitals or doctors in the vast majority of Inuit communities patients suffering from these illnesses are often flown at great public expense to regional or southern hospitals for treatment.

Education outcomes among Inuit youth are also severely impacted by the lack of housing. Students without adequate places to sleep and study cannot hope to achieve education levels equivalent to those found in southern Canada.

There is no aspect of life in the Canadian Arctic that is not negatively affected by the crisis in social housing. Until that issue is seriously addressed we cannot reasonably expect the gap in living standards between Inuit and our fellow Canadians to close any time soon.