New supportive housing in Fort Providence, N.W.T., will be place for healing, chief says

The Chief of Deh Gáh Got'îê First Nation says a new 60-bed supportive housing facility coming to Fort Providence, N.W.T., will be a place where women, 2SLGBTQI+, and children can heal and rebuild their lives.

"We'll be offering cultural programs, traditional healing program, elders guidance," Deh Gáh Got'îê Chief Michael Vandell told CBC News.

Funding for the new supportive housing project was announced on Friday. 

Deh Gáh Got'îê First Nation leadership has received $7.2 million from the Canada Housing And Mortgage Corporation to build the facility. Indigenous Services Canada will also provide funding to subsidize operational costs, the announcement said.

The Friday announcement said the facility will be specifically for women and families that are experiencing gender-based violence, but Vandell said they are hoping to open it up to women and 2SLGBTQI+ folks who are facing other challenges as well.

"That's was what came forward from the community," he said. "The women and the kids."

"We want to focus on them and make them a healthy community with healthy families." 

The new facility will be 19,000 square feet and contain six separate modular units which will be connected, Vandell said. The facility will also have outdoor space for programming, he added.

There will be 60 beds overall. Vandell said that each woman or family will get their own private space "almost like a little mini apartment." He said the goal is to make it a space where people can stay "long-term" if needed.

'We want to lead into housing, into good positions, you know, good jobs for them and their families and kids."

Vandell said that the site where the units will be going is almost completely ready, and the First Nation is expecting the buildings will soon be on site and construction will be finished by April.

He said that they will start working on programming early in the new year, in consultation with social services staff with the territorial government, the RCMP, the local school, and community advisors.

They are hoping to open and start offering programming early in the fall, Vandell said.

While they will focus on helping women in Fort Providence at first, Vandell said the goal is to open up the facility to those in need across the Deh Cho and the rest of the N.W.T.