Without funding, Listuguj's only shelter will close. What happens next?

A shelter in Listuguj Mi'kmaq Territory in Quebec will end daytime operations after Friday and is expected to shut down entirely by the end of March due to insufficient funding. 

"It's awful because 13 community members have lost their jobs, and then we have [about] 20 people that have no place to go," said Cathy Martin, chair of Epgwa's'g Temporary Shelter's board of directors.

The shelter, which opened in 2022, operates with eight beds and is often at maximum capacity. Due to its location on the Quebec-New Brunswick border, it also serves the nearby Mi'kmaw communities of Eel River Bar in New Brunswick and Gesgapegiag in Quebec, as well as providing services to non-Indigenous individuals from neighbouring areas like Campbellton, N.B., and Pointe-à-la-Croix, Que.

Epgwa's'g was established in response to a growing crisis of homelessness in Listuguj, which has an on-reserve population of 2,076. 

"There's not enough housing in the community. There just simply isn't," said Martin.

Martin credited the community and local businesses in raising $70,000 which allowed the shelter to open its doors.

"The whole shelter, everything was donated in there… Every piece of furniture, every linen, everything," Martin said. 

"Community came together to build that shelter."

Epgwa's'g has since relied on federal and provincial funding to sustain its operations. Martin said its primary funding source, the federal Pathways to Safe Indigenous Communities Initiative, wasn't renewed for the upcoming fiscal year.

Martin said the board sought alternative funding through Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada and was able to secure $40,000 — but she said that's "a drop in the bucket" compared to what's needed.

She criticized the federal government for prioritizing Indigenous populations in urban areas like Montreal over rural Indigenous communities.

"Are you trying to lure our homeless into the city?" Martin asked. 

Martin said she felt the federal government was catering to urban voters by trying to show they were addressing the issue of urban Indigenous homelessness, but failing to address the crisis on reserve. 

"The true Indigenous homelessness that's happening in the community, nobody sees other than other First Nation people," she said.