The Yukon Housing Corporation has bought 3 buildings in Whistle Bend to help provide affordable housing to Yukoners, per a press release. Six of those units will be overseen by the Council of Yukon First Nations to provide transitional housing for Indigenous women leaving emergency or temporary housing.
“This second-stage transitional housing apartment will help us house six families that are currently residing in our Family Preservation Wellness Centre,” said Shadelle Chambers, CYFN’s executive director of family preservation services.
Chambers said CYFN opened its Family Preservation and Wellness Centre in Whistle Bend earlier this year, and called the centre a double-edged sword.
“We're really happy to be able to fill the building, and have a lot of families and children accessing support, but it just really highlights the need and that intimate partner violence, homelessness and mental health challenges are still a reality for families,” she told reporters on June 13.
Rates of intimate partner violence in the Yukon are around four times higher than the national average, per Statistics Canada. The only jurisdictions with rates of intimate partner violence higher than the Yukon are the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.
Chambers said transitional housing stock is lacking in the Yukon, and that the six new units will help to address that gap.
Chambers said the units will act as an outreach model for the existing wellness centre: families living in the units will be semi-independent, but have access to supports and services like food, programming and childcare. She said the first families will start moving in this summer.
The three buildings — with six two-bedroom units each — were purchased for $6.3 million this past February. According to a press release, $1.23 million came from federal government via the Northern Carve-out of the Affordable Housing Fund.
Dr. Brendan Hanley, the member of parliament for Whitehorse, said the $1.23 million came out of the $40-million Northern Carve-out contribution the Liberal government made in 2021.
Premier Ranj Pillai told reporters that the units will help further the implementation of the Yukon government’s missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and Two-Spirited people strategy.
Pillai said the units were there to help build a supportive neighbourhood for women and children coming out of the family preservation centre. He also said the units are part of ongoing efforts to provide affordable housing across the territory.
Pillai mentioned the government’s involvement in transitional housing and a men’s shelter built in Dawson City, as well as a 10-unit building project in Watson Lake.
Chambers said all levels of government need to help provide housing, including the municipal government, who was not represented at the press conference.
“We need to ensure that City of Whitehorse has that social and cultural lens that is really lacking right now,” Chambers said, noting that CYFN is currently applying for a zoning bylaw amendment to have a higher fence for privacy reasons at its family preservation and wellness centre.
Chambers said the city also has to address the barriers with its building permit process.
“Particularly when we're in such a housing crisis, we have to have all levels of government working together to reduce those barriers so we can actually get people housed,” she said.
Contact Talar Stockton at talar.stockton@yukon-news.com
