OTTAWA—The chief of a Northern Ontario reserve grappling with a housing shortage that has some families living in unheated shacks says her band council will not pay for a third-party manager to oversee its spending.“My community will not consider third-party managers nor pay for them out of our already depressed band support funding budget,” Attawapiskat First Nation Chief Theresa Spence wrote, mostly in capital letters, in a response to Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan on Friday.
The Cree community declared a state of emergency at the end of October as winter approached with some families living in unheated tents and other makeshift housing without plumbing.
The Conservative government initially responded by appointing a third-party manager — who was kicked out after he showed up in the community unannounced earlier this week. The manager was tasked with taking control of band-council spending and ordering an independent audit of its books that would cost Attawapiskat roughly $1,300 per day.
The government also gave nearly half a million dollars to renovate five homes and on Friday announced that it had bought 15 trailer homes for $1.2 million to be delivered to the James Bay community when the winter roads open next month.
In the meantime, it offered to either evacuate vulnerable families or retrofit the healing lodge or hockey arena to provide temporary shelter for those living in tents and shacks.
That offer at first came with the condition that Attawapiskat accept the third-party manager, but now the federal government has gone ahead and bought the trailer homes.
Still, Duncan would not tell reporters on Friday who would pay for them and his spokeswoman later explained that Ottawa expects reimbursement if the third-party manager finds the money at the band council.
“If the third-party manager during his term identifies that there are existing and unspent federal dollars for housing to Attawapiskat these will be used to cover costs then,” Michelle Yao wrote in an email Friday.
Spence thanked Duncan for the offer, but said it did not go far enough to meet immediate needs.
That is because it turns out that only three vacant homes — instead of five — can be brought up to code and so there is now a need for 22 trailers instead of 15.
Spence also said that a budget has already been prepared for using the healing lodge as temporary shelter for families and will consult with her community about evacuation but believes they would rather wait for the trailers to arrive.
Spence was defiant as she slammed Duncan for saying her band council was unable to manage itself.
“My council does not lack the capacity. What we lack are funds to accomplish the above,” Spence wrote on Friday.
Spence said she would welcome the federal government coming in to audit the last five years of band council spending — so long as the government paid for it.
Yao said the government is reviewing the letter.
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Source: Star
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