The oilsands, the housing crisis next door and a new partnership to bring about change

When you live without direct power and running water, everyday tasks take far longer than they need to, says Darlene Richards.

Washing her hair, for example, is a lengthy process that involves first heating up water in a kettle that is plugged into an outlet at her trailer, which in turn is plugged into an outlet at her mother's cabin.

"You're steady busy," said Richards, who lives in a trailer with a built-on addition in Conklin, Alta., a primarily Métis hamlet of about 150 people, located 155 kilometres southeast of Fort McMurray. "It's a struggle."

Richards isn't alone. Despite being a stone's throw from the oilsands-rich area of Christina Lake, which generates billions of dollars in annual revenue, many people in Conklin struggle to find suitable housing, according to a report from the region's resource development committee.

Many Indigenous communities face similar challenges. According to Statistics Canada, Indigenous people are almost twice as likely to live in crowded housing as non-Indigenous people and more than three times as likely to live in dwellings in need of major repairs.

Richards, however, said she expects her life will soon change after she moves into a new home built through an unusual partnership.

The oil and gas company Cenovus Energy has put up $50 million to build homes in six First Nations and Métis communities closest to its Christina Lake and Foster Creek oilsands operations.

The project, first announced in 2020, aims to build 200 homes by the end of 2025. As of last year, 121 houses had been built, and the hope is to finish 161 by the end of this year.

Experts say the initiative could be seen as the latest example of a broader shift in corporate culture, in which resource companies have become more concerned about providing benefits to Indigenous communities in their orbit. There's far more that needs to be done, they say, but it's a step in the right direction.

"These companies make a lot of money from their oilsands activities, and so returning some of it to the community is just an appropriate thing to have happen," said Ken Coates, an Indigenous affairs expert and professor emeritus in public policy at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon.

"For a company to sort of stand up as Cenovus has done and say, 'There's this massive crisis in indigenous housing In the middle of some of the wealthiest piece of land in the world, it just doesn't make any sense' ... it is really quite a brave and determined sort of step and overdue, to say the least."

The initiative began when Alex Pourbaix, the former CEO and current executive chair of Cenovus, toured communities near its Christina Lake and Foster Creek operations and heard from residents about their housing challenges.

"Fundamentally, Cenovus wants to be a good neighbour," said Dustin Meek, the company's manager of Indigenous business development and housing.

The six First Nations and Métis communities that have received funding are: