Indigenous Community Members Denounce Issue of Homelessness Faced by Indigenous Peoples in Montreal

From Our Eyes To Yours was an event hosted at the Society for Arts & Technology aimed to explore the current situation of homelessness in the Indigenous community here in Montreal. The event also put a spotlight on the many organizations under The Montreal Indigenous Community Network, highlighting the work they have done to help the community.

The Montreal Indigenous Community Network is an umbrella organization that aims to connect various Indigenous groups and organizations in Montreal to allow for the ongoing well-being and growth of all First Nations, Inuit, and Metis people living in the city.

The four main goals of the event were to gather those who directly serve community members to share information and identify gaps in the services to best determine how to improve them for the betterment of the community.

This includes alleviating the bureaucratic burden faced by Indigenous groups who would otherwise have to fight on their own and transferring knowledge to the public through advocacy and awareness-building to bring light to issues in our community and empower Indigenous leadership the help build closer and stronger communities.

CUTV spoke with Leilani Shaw, the Executive Director of the Montreal Indigenous Community Network on the topic. Shaw discussed the importance of this event, what our government is currently doing to help elevate the situation, and how community members can help to improve the community going forward.

"There is a need for more community spaces, as well as culturally safe programming. But also just a general advocacy level to every level of government in order to change policies to make sure that Indigenous people are actually in charge of really important decisions that pertain to them," she emphasized.