Aboriginal People in Manitoba 2000Chapter 7 : Housing and Mobility |
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Housing Condition
Among non-Aboriginal households in Manitoba, 30.4% reported in the 1996 Census a need for “minor repairs” to their houses. 9.6% needed “major repairs,” with 60% reportedly needing no repairs at all. While this determination is somewhat subjective, Aboriginal people in general tended to be less sanguine on the subject of their housing conditions. Across Manitoba, 32.9% of Aboriginal people lived in housing reported as needing minor repairs, and 27.1% in housing needing major repairs – three times the non-Aboriginal rate.
The figures for “major repairs” vary widely among locales and among Aboriginal groups. Province-wide, 18% of Metis (including both homeowners and renters) indicated the need for major repairs, as compared to 22% of non-Status and 32% of Status Indians. Among Status Indians, 19% indicated “major repairs” off reserve (16% in Winnipeg), compared to 41.4% on reserve. On reserve, an additional 30.7% indicated a need for minor repairs, leaving only 28% living in fully satisfactory housing.
Much of the housing stock in Winnipeg is relatively good, though old. People living in Winnipeg, and especially Aboriginal people, are less likely to consider their housing to be in need of major repairs than are people outside Winnipeg. 16% of Status Indians in Winnipeg indicated a need for major repairs, 15% of non-Status Indians, 12.5% of Metis, and 8.6% of non-Aboriginal residents. The average for all Aboriginal Winnipeggers is 14.5%. Aboriginal housing off reserve outside Winnipeg fared worse at 22.9% needing major repairs, and on reserve worst of all at 41.4%.
For many social and economic indicators we have been examining, the Metis fare better than Status Indians do. Housing repair conditions outside Winnipeg are an interesting exception to this rule: the difference between the two groups disappears. About 22% of Metis off reserve outside Winnipeg indicate a need for major repairs, as compared to 23% of Status people in the same areas. 42% of Metis houses on reserve needed major repairs, compared to 41% for Status Indians. By the same token, the gap between housing conditions for Metis within and outside Winnipeg is wider than for their First Nations counterparts.
The proportion of housing on reserve deemed to be in need of major repair is the same in the north and in the south, at 41.4%. Aboriginal housing off reserve, however, is inferior in the north, with 27.7% needing major repairs as compared to 19.4% in the south, or 22.9% in the south excepting Winnipeg.
