Our Background

The Yellowknife Street Support Network was created in November 2025 by a group of Indigenous Yellowknifers and their allies who have both lived and professional experience in the homelessness sector.

 

Many Indigenous people in Yellowknife are experiencing homelessness because of long-standing trauma, discrimination, and systems that were never designed to meaningfully support them. This reality is rooted in colonialism, residential schools, the foster-care system, forced displacement, and public services that have often failed to understand or respect Indigenous ways of caring for people. These harms also include medical experimentation on Indigenous patients at institutions such as the Charles Camsell Hospital. Together, these experiences caused deep and lasting damage to families, trust in public systems, health outcomes, and economic stability. The impacts did not end when these institutions closed; they continue across generations through intergenerational trauma, disrupted family systems, poverty, and ongoing mistrust of services that were once used to harm rather than help. It is not an individual failure.

 

Through our past conversations with people who have lived experience, Elders, frontline workers, and families, we know where support could be stronger and how it could work better. People want services that are connected, safe, culturally grounded, and trauma-informed. There is a need for systems where Indigenous staff are valued for their knowledge, care, and leadership. We need approaches that build trust, respect Indigenous experiences, and help them navigate challenges with dignity.

 

We also see immense strength in the community, with people supporting and protecting each other, surviving day after day, and advocating for dignity even in difficult spaces. There is so much resilience, knowledge, and leadership among those experiencing homelessness and within the broader Indigenous community.

 

Our work is grounded in human rights. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), the UN’s research on Indigenous homelessness, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action all affirm that Indigenous people have the right to housing, safety, dignity, healing, and self-determination. We must be leaders in the decisions and systems that affect our lives.

 

This plan is our commitment to act on what people have told us. It is shaped by our own experiences, strengths, and vision for a better future. We recognize that our understanding will continue to evolve, and this plan will continue to take shape through ongoing feedback from people with lived experience of homelessness and through the natural learning that comes from doing this work over time.