Youth between the ages of 16 and 29 in Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) face significant barriers to housing including unaffordability, lack of access to appropriate housing options, limited supports, and housing mediated by non-housing institutions. These challenges are often sidelined in discussions of housing in NAN, as youth journeys to accessing housing on and off-reserve are not well understood.

TDL partnered with NAN and the NAN Oshkaatisak Youth Council in 2019 to launch Creating a Home for Our Youth (CaHfOY). The project emerged from early work to develop the NAN Housing Strategy, but was distinct in its focus on intentionally centering youth voices and experiences of housing journeys on- and off-reserve. The project was rooted in the belief that NAN youth have uniquely valuable contributions to housing discussions, including important visions for alternative housing systems.

The project resulted in a first-of-its-kind report about youth housing in NAN, which outlines 55 youth-centered recommendations addressing the unique and complex housing journeys of NAN youth, including the barriers posed by systemic programs and policies that include and extend beyond housing.

Guided by curiosity, the project began by asking: 

How do NAN youth experience housing on- and off-reserve? How are the housing experiences of NAN youth mediated by existing institutions? What housing priorities are important to NAN youth and how might these priorities contribute to a future alternative housing system?

Who was involved?

The project involved engaging primarily with youth between 16-29 years of age in NAN territory, including members of the Oshkaatisak Youth Council. Service providers in northern Ontario were also engaged as secondary informants in the project.

What was TDL’s role?

TDL took the lead on hosting workshops at NAN Youth Gatherings and conducting in-depth journey mapping interviews with NAN youth, which were later analyzed using an institutional ethnography approach. Secondary interviews were hosted with service providers in northern Ontario to further inform the project. 

TDL was also responsible for conducting a literature review of northern housing and homelessness strategies to identify potential policy responses to address the challenges youth raised in interviews. These findings contributed to the 55 recommendations outlined in the final CaHfOY report. 

What types of engagement occurred?

Youth Interviews 

Between 2019 and 2023, the TDL team conducted 27 virtual interviews with NAN youth. Interviews were typically hosted one-on-one and adopted an institutional ethnography approach to understand the interactions and connections between youth housing journeys and broader systems, services, programs, and policies. Each interview was conducted by at least two members of the TDL team and used a Jamboard mapping activity to discuss and visually map details of youth housing journeys. A key aspect of these interviews was unpacking how different systems such as education, healthcare, Child and Family Services and justice impact access to housing for NAN youth across northern Ontario. An emphasis was placed on moments of change in youths’ lives and housing journeys, when youth may have had no clear understanding or plan of where to go next.

Workshops 

Interviews were coupled with a charette-style workshop at the 2024 NAN Youth Gathering, where a focus was placed on further understanding youth housing journeys and brainstorming the meaning of safety and safe spaces for youth in NAN.

Service Provider Interviews

Although NAN youth were the primary informants, 5 virtual interviews were conducted with service providers working in northern Ontario to better understand the existing service, program, and policy landscape.

What was learned?

Recommendations will always be reductionist. 

The depth of reflections and trauma that NAN youth shared in interviews demonstrated that youth housing experiences cannot be homogenized into a single narrative. Individual youth housing journeys are inextricable from discussions about the failures of broader systems, policies, and processes including healthcare, education, Child and Family Services and justice systems. Institutional ethnography is designed to analyze fixed, closed systems with limited externalities. As a result, the TDL team faced challenges in adequately capturing the depth and scope of youths’ housing journeys in a manner that reflected an appropriate set of recommendations focused solely on housing. When developing recommendations, the TDL team routinely grappled with questions such as: how can you meaningfully honor the stories that participants have shared? How can this be done in a way that is safe? How can this be done in a way that leads to recommendations that actually make a difference for NAN youth? As part of recommendation development, the project team collaborated with Oshkaatisak council and various NAN departments.

Virtual formats can contribute to the creation of safer engagement spaces.

In 2019, when CAHFOY began, interviews with NAN youth were designed to occur in-person. However, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the TDL team quickly adapted to a virtual format via Zoom. Many participants noted that they appreciated the virtual format, and felt more able to speak freely because the interviews were not occuring in a public setting. Some participants were also able to participate in interviews while simultaneously fulfilling childcare responsibilities or other commitments that would have otherwise made them unable to participate in-person.